
How I Busted a Thief Who Tried to Sell My Camera on Craigslist  - missy
http://www.petapixel.com/2013/03/26/how-i-busted-a-thief-who-tried-to-sell-my-camera-on-craigslist/
======
rdl
If true, I'm pretty sure this wasn't in San Francisco or Oakland. I could
maybe see one of the smaller Peninsula PDs helping out like this.

Confronting a thief in person is pretty dangerous (if the police weren't
there); there's a non-zero chance of a fight, possibly involving a knife or
gun. If you theoretically have a CCW and can be legally carrying a gun for
self defense, it's still physically dangerous, and legally risky (a lot of
legal/self defense advice is that if you're going to confront someone like a
cheating spouse or whatever, you should not have even a legally owned gun with
you, since if things escalate, it can get much worse.) Even a "righteous" self
defense shoot in California is probably going to cost you $50-100k in legal --
absolutely worth it to save your life or the life of someone you care about,
not really worth it for anything else, including breaking up strangers
fighting on the street.

Much safer to just gather information and give it to the police.

I don't know how much risk I'd be willing to take for a $350 camera. (if it
had a 5.0 f/1.0L or 1200mm, capture/torture/killing might be appropriate,
though)

~~~
jemfinch
> Much safer to just gather information and give it to the police.

The police won't help you recover your stolen property: it's not their job.

> Confronting a thief in person is pretty dangerous...there's a non-zero
> chance of a fight, possibly involving a knife or gun.

Every day walking around a city involves a non-zero chance of a fight. Every
day interacting with other humans in civilization can involve a knife or a
gun. Meeting someone who opportunistically boosted your DSLR at a house party
isn't significantly more dangerous than meeting _any_ Craigslist seller in
_any_ public place. In fact, it's probably less dangerous, because you won't
be walking up to someone you don't know with hundreds of cash dollars in your
pocket.

It's not even a complicated meeting. You take a friend, for safety, as many
craigslist buyers do. You ask to see the camera, as any craigslist buyer
would. You ask to take a few sample pictures to make sure it works, as any
Craigslist buyer would. You snap a picture of the perpetrator and tell him
(politely, because you don't want to fight) that this is your camera and
you're going to keep it; if he disagrees, he's welcome to accompany you to the
police station to sort things out. The vast majority of opportunistic thieves
at this point will _completely bug out_ since they know they're busted and
_they don't want to go to jail_ (there are few DSLR/lens combinations that
don't qualify as felony larceny in most states).

I find your vision of a world in which opportunistic thieves pack heat and
victims "just gather information and give it to the police" unrealistic, not
to mention depressing.

~~~
rdl
This model of the world is optimal in the majority of cases, but when it
fails, it fails very badly.

~~~
jemfinch
So is driving on the highway. What, exactly, is your point?

We take calculated risks every single day. Meeting an opportunistic thief in a
public place to retrieve your own property is at the low of end the risk
spectrum, and the savings is a lot more than a slightly faster commute to
work.

~~~
rdl
A thief is MUCH more likely than a random person to be 1) impulsive 2) stupid
3) violent.

It's a calculated risk. I _also_ don't drive on New Years Day at 3am due to
the drunks (or, really, late at night on Sunday morning in some areas). I
prioritize my personal safety highest, followed by protection from liability,
followed by my property. I've seen confrontations over similar things turn
into stabbings or shootings. In Oakland, we had a fun game of "armed
restaurant takeover" last year, where kids would enter a restaurant or
coffeeshop, grab all the laptops/phones, and in a few cases, shoot people.

The police in most non-dysfunctional places are fairly willing to make arrests
if you hand them a totally packaged case for grand theft. What they hate is
work which screws up their stats (reported crimes which they can't/won't
solve).

------
xlance
I have a similiar story. Left my laptop in the car, came back and found the
window smashed. Had installed Prey on the laptop, and after jogging around the
neighborhood (wearing a suit straight from work) for half an hour I get a
e-mail. Location, picture of the guy - everything. I run down to catch a cab,
but then I suddenly see a police car. Wave them over, they call up another
squad car that was 50 meter away from where the guy was sitting. We come down
(5 minute drive) and they already have him in chains. It took maximum 4
minutes from he opened the laptop until he was surrounded by cops.

~~~
moepstar
I've also got Prey installed on my MBP, however for it to "properly" work
(i.e. for it to be able to log into a wireless network) the laptop needs to be
unlocked after it wakes up from sleep, something i still hesitate to do.

So i presume yours was set to just wake up and be ready to be used without
password etc.?

~~~
xlance
Yes. The content of the computer was not a problem for me, it's the hassle of
getting a new one. Don't think my spreadsheets have any value in the
underworld.

------
ISL
Big ups to the folks who created stolencamerafinder.com (looks like one person
associated with it is named "Matt"), who gave the author a critical tool.

~~~
cycomachead
Yes, it's a great site when it works. My personal camera isn't found despite
uploading many images online w/ EXIF data.

I recently (two weeks) had my camera bag stolen from my apartment in Berkeley,
with a few other things around $9k total and quite a few years to accumulate
it. Fortunately, insurance is helping, but the police didn't even take prints
in my case. Nevertheless, I'm continually stalking ebay/Craigslist/others for
serial numbers and other signs as I've kept pretty detailed notes on the gear
I had.

~~~
auctiontheory
That sucks. Where in Berkeley? (Since I was just about to move there.)

------
robbiep
How good are stories of recovery.

My bike was stolen from the hospital where I'm a student. 3 years of going
there and never a problem, this night I walked outside and my bike was gone..
The thief had kindly left the chain lying ont be ground where he had cut it.

2 months later and I still hadn't given up on my beautiful 3 yr old trek road
bike, Red Lightning. On a whim I checked eBay about 3am (late night studying)
and listed all bikes in Sydney.

At 100 per page you can get through them fairly quickly.

Red was on the 6th page with my custom parts still attached. Called he police
who came around at 3.30 in the morning- gave them the website, emailed them my
serial number and other photos and they went around the next day and recovered
it for me-

Such a win!

Unfortunately still took another 2 months to get it back from the police, but
it came back and is still with me to this day

------
danso
An interesting story, I'm glad it worked for the OP...I had been robbed at
gunpoint sometime ago in NYC. The cops helped as much as they could but
nothing above and beyond...for example, the fact that whoever had my iPod was
now using my Netflix account through it didn't really register much interest
(and a Netflix rep claimed to not be able to track the IP that device was
using...huh?).

I did set up a fake account on Craigslist to pretend that I was looking to buy
an iPod of my specific make and model (it wasn't a common color/size) and
found a couple of people who were selling such an iPod, but they claimed to
have original packaging, which would not apply in my case (though I guess if
you're good at being a fence you can get packaging from somewhere).

Mostly, I learned how annoying it is to search through Craigslist noise.

\----

edit: Some commenters have noted that the OP's story sounds fake, on the
grounds that a big city police department wouldn't take interest. Well, yes
and no.

My good friend had her iPhone snatched in a park during the day. She chased
the perp on foot and managed to get the attention of police and, in her words,
no less than two unmarked police cars suddenly showed up. They chased the perp
into the projects but at that point, there was nothing the police could do.
But they did take her to the station to look at mug shots and file a report.

In my case, I had left my phone unerased for a week (it was Android) and
turned on the tracking program, which allowed me to locate him approximately
with GPS and even record sound and take photos. I found where he was staying
on two different occasions but the police declined to check it out...and I
don't begrudge them since a 100-foot radius in a NYC apartment complex is
quite large. Also, my detective was involved in investigating an unusually
public and brutal crime that weekend and couldn't get back to me.

In other words, the NYPD will call out the troops for a crime in progress, or
if you have an otherwise extremely solid lead, as in the case of the OP.
Otherwise, yes, they will not go out of their way to track your stolen goods,
because they operate on the assumption that it's been sold on the street (in
my case, I doubted my phone had been sold, because the Android program lets me
know how many times someone has tried to unlock the passcode and other usage
info about the phone...it definitely hadn't been hard-wiped to be resold yet).

~~~
rdl
Manufacturers of expensive portable items really should put some effort into
making their products easier to trace (by the legitimate owners), making them
less appealing to steal.

Car theft used to be a much bigger problem before 1) VINs everywhere and 2)
anti-theft systems. The easiest way to steal a high end car now is carjacking
(i.e. once all the security systems are dieabled); otherwise, you have to
either flatbed it or have the right ECU to swap for a specific model.
Opportunistic theft of a late-model luxury car is actually pretty hard now.

European cellphone vendors do this; it really should be done for any product.
I'd be ok with the manufacturer charging a small fee to officially transfer
ownership, too, guaranteeing that the first purchaser can't then trace the
device.

~~~
8ig8
Apparently Apple is providing the NYC PD assistance in this regard:

[http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/nypd_apple_corps_PmTgzglh...](http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/nypd_apple_corps_PmTgzglhsHAGKoRFfsrDJI)

> Every time an Apple device is stolen, detectives attempt to get tracking
> numbers from the victim or online records.

> That number, known as the International Mobile Station Equipment Identity,
> is then shared with the officers in Police Headquarters who pass it on to
> Apple.

> The California-based company then informs the NYPD of the device’s current
> location — and it can track it even if it was reregistered with a different
> wireless provider.

~~~
FireBeyond
It's the IMEI, and Apple is certainly not alone in helping - any wireless
provider can help, and indeed there are services available to law enforcement
to determine if a cellular device is registered to another wireless provider,
and contact them. Every cellular provider can also blacklist an IMEI, and it
won't be able to be registered on any network, effectively bricking it.

~~~
yardie
* Every cellular provider can also blacklist an IMEI

This is very country specific and requires the cooperation of all service
providers. Once the phone leaves the country and registers on different
network the block becomes ineffective. Thieves here know the phone will be
blocked so they send it on to Russia, for example.

------
elliottcarlson
A few years ago, my wife made a mistake and left her purse in her class room
as she went out for a smoke break - while it was a pretty poor decision to
leave her purse unattended, this was a class of about 10 students that she
thought she could trust. As she was driving back home, she realized she didn't
have any money for the toll to cross over the bridge - which should not have
been the case. Luckily the toll booth clerk let her through and my wife really
didn't think much about it other than that she may have just not had money on
her after all.

Later that evening we get a call from Chase asking about a string of purchases
on her credit card - panic mode sets in and she realizes that one of her
credit cards is missing. Luckily, my wife puts the phone on speaker mode so I
can hear the full details of the conversation - and the Chase rep goes through
the list of locations the card was used that day. I take note of all the
locations, times and dollar amounts.

With this information in hand, we both headed to the first store on the list,
a GameStop located about 10 minutes from the school, and the first purchase
attempt happened 15 minutes after school ended - the culprit wasted no time.
We speak to the manager of the GameStop who understands the situation and is
eager to help, but only with the presence of the police. We call up the police
and are able to explain everything that has happened, that we want to file a
report, and that we are on location of one of the stores who has the camera
footage already loaded if someone could come out. We waited about 45 minutes
and finally a patrol car shows up.

We start the process of explaining what has happened so far, that we have the
full list of locations and times - and just need their help to be able to
positively identify the thief on camera. They agree and we are able to access
the back video room to attempt to identify the person. Sadly, GameStop (at
least this location) had really poor recordings and it was hard to have a 100%
confirmation - it could've been one of two classmates and we weren't certain.
The next location was a Target, literally around the corner. We went over
there, with the two police officers, who went to speak to their security
office. Unlike GameStop, we had to wait outside until they had loaded the
exact time - I guess to prevent us from seeing any other
information/transactions. It turns out that Target had a security system that
can take the credit card number used, automatically go to not only the right
time, but right checkout aisle and show close ups of the person AND the card
being used. One press of a button and the video was burnt to a DVD for the
police officers to take back as evidence.

In the end the class mate was trying to buy Playstation 3s to be able to sell,
so she could pay off the fines that she received for committing identity theft
when she was a minor.... She received 6 months in one county for the theft of
the card, then another 8 months for using the card in a different county.
Additionally her mom was arrested since they noticed that she had a warrant
out for her arrest so they just took care of that one as well.

~~~
ISL
Sounds like Target takes loss prevention as seriously as it does advertising.
Impressive.

~~~
wamatt
Curious, but why would Target care too much if the credit card was stolen? My
understanding (which could be wrong) was the credit card companies or end
users absorb the losses (depending on circumstances).

~~~
1337Coder
You would think so but no. Visa etc and the banks don't want that kind of
trouble. To charge cards you need a special bank account called a merchant
account.

A condition of this merchant account is that if someone issues a charge-back
on their creditcard, if the merchant can't prove that the card owner brought
the service/product then the funds are taken directly form their merchant
account by the bank and then given back to the card-holder.

This is why anti-fraud systems are so important to merchants.

Case: I steal your creditcard, I buy a tv worth $10, 000. You notice this, and
chargeback the merchant. The merchant has to pay you $10, 000 and he lost teh
cost price of the tv he sold me (say $7, 000).

So by accepting your stolen card as payment, the merchant just lost $17, 000!

Source: I build payment gateways.

~~~
pigou
Aren't you double-counting here? On net the merchant only loses the
merchandise. The net debit to the merchant's account is zero.

~~~
solnyshok
correct maths are: merchant gets 10000 then returns 10000 and still has to pay
7000 to vendor for the goods. net loss is 7K, not 17K

~~~
dougk16
You could also say the total loss is 10K to the merchant, assuming he has a
reasonable expectation of making that 3K profit...that is getting a little
abstract about it though.

------
alenart
This is just like the story of the guy whose stolen bike from Portland showed
up in Seattle's Craigslist. IIRC this guy didn't have support from the police
and set his own sting operation, the a-ha thing here was that he used Burner
to make it look like he had a Seattle area code:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKTdeXH0Iz0&noredirect=1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKTdeXH0Iz0&noredirect=1)

------
wazoox
To compensate for all these theft stories: in summer 2008, while in an
amusement park in Denmark, I stupidly left my camera on a picnic table. When I
came back (without much hope) 15 minutes later, several people, identifying me
from my concerned glances around, came to tell me that my camera was safe and
guided me to the park guy who was keeping it.

BTW, in Denmark bicycles are parked everywhere without any lock but a small
wheel lock that doesn't attach the bike to anything, but only prevent the rear
wheel from spinning. Of course most people don't even bother closing this
pretty useless lock.

------
JDGM
My headmaster in primary school once gave a great assembly on keelhauling
where he went into all the gory details of this punishment. As an 8 year old
boy, I was gripped.

The part which has really stayed with me is that he said the only offense for
which keelhauling was the automatic punishment was stealing. The reason he
told us was that on a ship everyone has to trust each other and theft _ruins_
that system. Stealing a shipmate's property, no matter how small, puts the
whole ship in danger.

I often wonder whether it would be a net improvement to extend that severity
for theft beyond a boat. Whenever I lock up my bike it bothers me what this
simple act is _saying_ about society. I now live in a country where it feels
as though theft carries a far greater level of social unacceptability, a far
higher level of shame associated with it. I like that. In the UK where I grew
up however, sometimes taking things that are not yours is reframed as a kind
of opportunistic cunning and craftiness. I hate that.

------
gambiting
Really cool story.

I had my bike stolen a year ago in the UK, and it was a really nice mountain
bike worth almost a thousand quid. I hoped it would be easy to find, since I
gave the police pictures, serial number of the frame, and most importantly -
the brand of the bike(Kellys) is completely non-existent in the UK, they never
sold their bikes there,and I brought it with me from my home country. So I
thought, it should be quite easy to spot among all other brands, since it's
pretty much one of its kind. Well, I was never able to, never popped up on
Ebay, Craigslist or any other trading websites. I really do wonder sometimes
what happened to it.

------
curveship
In two decades of bike commuting, I've had my bicycle stolen three times, and
with a lot of effort and a lot of luck I've recovered it all three times.

#1: I was 19 and had ridden it to a local swimming hole, stashing it in the
woods. That sounds dumb, but this was in a county of only 4,000 residents, so
you didn't expect much theft. When I came back, it was gone.

How it was recovered: that same day, I went to every house within a mile and
asked if anyone had seen it. Four days later, a dad and his son showed up,
saying they'd found it abandoned in some woods.

#2: (same bike, a decade later) I parked it behind my house, out of sight of
the street. I started out locking it, but over the years I got to be relaxed
about it. One morning about 7 AM I hard footsteps and a bike being wheeled
down my driveway. It was a shared driveway with my neighbor, and he was also a
biker, so I figured he was just heading out early. Nope, that was my bike
being stolen. I never found out if the thief knew it was back there or
wandered back and happened upon it.

How it was recovered: I live in a smallish city (300,000), and figured if I
just kept my eyes open, I'd see it eventually. It became a habit to scan a
bike rack whenever I walked by or locked up. Sure enough, two years later
there it was, right next to me as I locked up my new bike. It still had the
registration stickers from my college on it, so it was easy to ID with the
police. It turned out that the current owner had bought it from a pawnshop.
She ended up being the true victim, as I got my bike back and she didn't get
her money.

#3, eight years later: I had run to the library to pick up a book, only to
find that my lock, which always lived in my bag, had been left in my
daughter's bike trailer after a weekend excursion. I stashed my bike in the
middle of the rack, jammed in between two others. No one can tell it's
unlocked, right? Wrong. I came out ten minutes later and it was gone.

How it was recovered: I mailed a picture of my bike to every local listserve.
About a week later, a woman wrote me saying she thought she'd seen it on a
porch in her neighborhood. "Great!" I thought, and asked her what the address
was. Then the conversation started to feel strange, and she eventually stopped
replying to my messages. Two weeks later, she finally replied, sending a
picture of the bike. It was definitely mine, as I had installed some custom
parts and stickers. When I wrote that I was absolutely positively sure it was
my bike, she finally gave me the address -- it turned out it wasn't a
"neighbor" but a young married couple with whom she was sharing her apartment.

I decided to ask the police to come with me when I went to recover it, which
they very kindly did. The husband who had stolen the bike wasn't home, but his
wife was. She claimed he'd "found it on the side of the road with a free
sign," and that "he would never steal." Clearly hogwash, but in the end, I
didn't press charges for two reasons. I went back with a police officer to
talk to the couple, and it was very clear they were terrified. He was a young
teacher and being convicted of this crime would end that career. My gut
instinct was that they weren't habitual thieves. They were both smart, college
educated, but just getting started in their lives and without much money. He
clearly really wanted my bike. (For the record, it was a semi-desirable fixed
gear road bike). He'd fixed up a few worn parts, replaced others with ones
that matched his style, etc. In the end, I decided to believe that it was a
one-time crime of passion and to let him go with a stern talking-to from the
police and a pointer towards the local bike co-op where he could build up his
own bike.

Phew, long story. Anyway, if you lose something ... keep trying!

~~~
hoprocker
Amazing that your bike was stolen 3 times and recovered! Only one of my many
friends whose bikes have been stolen have ever found it again. Moral of the
story: lock up your bike.

Or, if a bike is unlocked in the woods, is it still stealable?

~~~
justincormack
A friend of mine found his bike being ridden by the thief a week later and
retrieved it. In London, not a small town...

------
lucb1e
Wow, police helping anyone in a situation like this? Like, you ask them and
they come and help the same day (or at all)? I don't mean to be harsh, but
based on personal history and what I've heard from friends and acquaintances,
that's a first.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
I think it helped that he had pretty much done all the work for them, and if
he explained it well enough on the phone or in person I don't see why they
wouldn't help.

------
weisser
Is this FB screenshot from the blog the actual person that stole the camera?

[http://cdn.petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2013/03/facebooksear...](http://cdn.petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2013/03/facebooksearch.jpg)

Over 22k followers? It seems like this was a fairly petty crime for someone
with that strong of an influence. I wonder if the motivation was monetary or
for the sheer thrill of stealing and reselling something...

~~~
biff
I suspect it isn't. The writer is in the Bay area according to a blurb at the
bottom of the article, where the FB account in the screenshot is listed as
from New York.

------
dkrich
Awesome. There's nothing I hate more than thieves and there are few things
more aggravating than having personal property violated or stolen.

A few years ago I had a bunch of cash and my debit card stolen from a gym bag.
I tracked the purchases for the next day and then cancelled the card. I
tracked the thief to a gas station nearby where he/she had put close to $100
on it. I asked the gas station owner to review the surveillance tapes, but as
luck would have it, they weren't running any surveillance at the time. I filed
a police report but was never able to catch the thief.

My only problem with the story is the part about having a friend ready to
tackle the thief if he tried to run. This is very risky, not only because you
are risking the friend's safety, but also because if the thief gets injured
you could be on the losing end of a lawsuit. You have to be very, very careful
when it comes to physical aggression. If you try to restrain somebody you had
better have a damn good reason or you could be guilty of false imprisonment or
false arrest.

------
pixelcort
I would be curious who invited the person, or how the person found out about
the party.

~~~
lysol
Could be his game. Party looks big enough while walking by, sneak in when it's
starting to get a little hazy, grab a little something and stroll out.

Or he was just a scummy fuck.

~~~
joezydeco
And now he knows where to return to meet the guy that put him in jail.

~~~
mkopinsky
As does any home thief.

------
enjo
I've had 3 computers stolen from me in my life. Twice out of my car, and once
when my house was broken into.

Just once I wish a thief had been this dumb.

~~~
triplesec
Never leave valuables in a car. This is well-known. Doing so is being about as
dumb as this thief. Although you've learned the hard way, and I suppose we all
make mistakes, so don't see this as personal criticism!

~~~
ISL
After having my car stolen, and a bunch of stuff taken, I was surprised to
find that ~25% of the folks I talked with about it had the same sentiment;
that it's stupid to leave things in a car.

Where I grew up, everyone left stuff in cars. Nobody stole things. Worked
great.

Why is it okay for people to steal stuff in cities, but not in small towns?

Do you take your car-fixing tools (~2 BTC, these days) out of your car every
time you go into your house?

~~~
meric
Do you at least hide the valuables in the car so you can't see them through
the window?

~~~
ISL
I do now. It's hard to make it look like there's really nothing interesting in
a wagon, especially if you'd like to stop in at a store/restaurant after a day
in the mountains.

At best, there's a blanket over a pile of stuff that looks a lot like a pack
and skis...

~~~
rdl
This is actually why I will only buy sedans or other cars with trunks (well,
and the special legal protections trunks have vs. "accessible to driver"
passenger compartments. Otherwise, I'd have an A3. Fortunately Audi is coming
out with an S3 Sedan in 2014/2015.

~~~
wsh
You could buy that Audi A3 now, if there are any left.

I have the current hatchback version, and with the factory-supplied, swing-
down parcel shelf installed and the lift gate closed, the area behind the rear
seats is totally enclosed by rigid, opaque surfaces; it’s impossible to see
any of the contents from inside or outside the vehicle.

I don’t know whether this area has the same legal status as a trunk, but
practically speaking, it’s no more accessible to the driver than the trunk of
a sedan having rear seats that could be unlatched and folded down by someone
in the passenger compartment.

~~~
jfim
Out of curiosity, why does the trunk have a particular legal status?

~~~
gyardley
In America, police only have to show 'reasonable suspicion' rather than
probable cause to search a person and his immediate surroundings for weapons -
and if they find something else that's illegal while searching for 'weapons',
you're out of luck.

Since the trunk is out of reach of the driver, it can't be part of this
'reasonable suspicion' search - unlike, say, the glove compartment. For the
trunk, police need your voluntary consent or probable cause.

In other words, keep your contraband out of reach.

~~~
rdl
Also, for weapons, you can keep unloaded shotguns and rifles in your trunk. If
they're in the passenger compartment, they have to be in locked cases. I have
an A4, and it's not really big enough to carry "real" rifle cases like Pelican
1750s, especially with anything else in there. A soft case or bare rifle fits
fine when going to the range.

------
Luyt
This is quite scary:

 _"The cops questioned him for a bit [...] and arrested him. It turns out he
had a very realistic airsoft gun on him, which would have made running away
with the camera a helluva lot scarier. When he was fingerprinted at the
station it turns out this guy also had a warrant out for his arrest, and that
he was using an alias all this time."_

A guy running around with a realistic looking gun, a warrant out for his
arrest, and this person just visited your party yesterday night. Brrr...

------
starky
I was reading this story and found myself smiling after every paragraph
because I had gone through pretty much the exact same story. Except that it
was a Nintendo Wii soon after it came out.

In my case the police officer that got the guys information after I brought it
in decided to go meet the guy himself because he recognized the name. Had the
console hand delivered to me that night after matching the serial number.

------
kamobit
This is awesome, but after going through all the trouble to protect your
identity doesn't putting this up online undermine your efforts?

You mention days of the week in the post as well as some details of your
exchange with the thief in your replies to his Craigslist ad. He could likely
tie it back to you easily if he was informed of this story.

~~~
mieubrisse
I'm fairly certain that if the thief wanted, he could have found out the
author's identity from his fellow friends/partygoers that attended the party.
I don't think the author is overly worried about concealing his identity.

------
TommyDANGerous
Great story and perseverance. Huge props and very happy you were able to get
your camera back. This gives us hope when we are faced in this kind of
situation. Great read, thanks!

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itistoday2
Reminds me a bit of the <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/p-p-p-powerbook>

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azernik
The most interesting part of this story to me - the guy checked the serial
number of his camera by uploading a picture taken by that camera to an online
tool, which I presume read that out of the EXIF tags. It was useful in this
case, but it's still somewhat creepy that every picture some significant
subset of people are taking includes personally identifiable information.

~~~
sokoloff
In what way is the serial number of your camera PII?

~~~
elliottcarlson
If there were a big enough set of images with serial number data associated to
them, it would be trivial to link one image to another - which might be used
as a profile picture on Facebook, or perhaps a picture on a dating site.

Being able to link the photos to the same owner could potentially lead to PII
becoming available, and could lead to embarrassing, or potentially dangerous
situations.

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brc
Well, here is my stole and recovered story.

I was tending to my front garden one day when I see this massive shirtless guy
walking up the road with a huge pot plant. It was a weird scene so stuck with
me.

Later that day two Thai guys walk up the road and ask me if I had seen anyone
with a pot plant. I tell them that I had, they tell me they own the local Thai
restaurant down the road, and someone has stolen the big pot plants from out
the front. I gave them a description of the guy, but I told hem I didn't know
where he went.

Anyway, next morning I get up, and one of my pot plants is missing. After
cursing for a while, I sat staring out the back window musing on life. When I
realize what I am looking at is my pot plant in the back window of an
apartment three buildings away. A very low rent building known to house
questionable types (the local nickname was junkie towers)

So I got out the zoom lens, took a a couple of pictures and hunted through my
garden photos until I found a picture of the said pot plant. I went down to
the police station with the photos and told the my story. Well, the police
like nothing more than an open-and -shut case. So they got a warrant, and went
around and knocked on the door that afternoon. What they found was a veritable
treasure chest of goods taken from around the neighborhood, with pot plants
being a particular specialty. The police told me tehy're easy to sell at
markets and don't have serial numbers etc. but there were bikes, lawn
furniture, you name it, anything that could be stolen without breaking and
entering.

The guy turned out to have a warrant for his arrest for an assault charge, and
a couple of other things. The detective eventually asked if I woid testify at
a hearing against him, which I agreed to, despite being a bit nervous of the
size of the guy and his previous assault charge.

The big day in court came and the defending attorney made a big song and dance
and tried to suggest that the fact that his client had an identical pot plant
to mine was mere coincidence. I suggested that the amount of combinations of
pot plants was a very high number of permutations, to which he triumphantly
declared that given there were possibly thousands like it, it coudld be merely
similar and not exactly the same. I countered with the fact that the odds of a
similar pot plant showing up at the exact same time as mine went missing were
too high to be mere chance.

Anyway, the guy went to jail, I forget how long now. Th detective told me it
was some of the best civilian witness testimony he had seen (I'm sure he says
that to everyone). I got my pot plant back, complete with evidence tag that I
left on for fun until it disintegrated.

I must say, being in the witness stand was quite harrowing, having to point to
someone in court and argue you're not a liar. I had shaky and sweaty hands
afterwards, a combination of nerves and adrenalin. All that over a $20 pot
plant, but a principle was at stake and was not going to let this creep get
away with it.

~~~
mkmk
Potted plant or pot plant?

~~~
pixl97
I'm pretty sure the poster would also be in jail if it were 'pot' rather than
just some regular plant in a pot.

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triplesec
Much less hassle than this guy last year who got his bicycle back from a
thief. This was an expensive bike, so he had to fly to another city to
retrieve it.

[http://gawker.com/5934912/bike-thief-tries-to-sell-stolen-
bi...](http://gawker.com/5934912/bike-thief-tries-to-sell-stolen-bike-on-
craigslist-gets-busted-by-victim)

------
bambax
> _My DSLR (...) which I learned photography on_

Oh. Nowadays people learn photography using a "D" SLR... That makes me feel so
old!

PS: thanks for the info about <http://www.stolencamerafinder.com/>, very
useful (and not something you could have used with a non-D SLR...)

------
victorhn
Two undercover cops for a camera? What an awesome police department. In my
country i am skeptical i could get that kind of support for a camera, most
probably i would file a report where the investigation would go nowhere ( if
there is one ).

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auctiontheory
Good job!

All this story lacks is a serious beatdown, or at least a tasering to the
balls.

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aaron695
You have to be carefully with stories like this, often the reason they go
viral is not for nice reasons.

To me it seems the enjoyment is someone gets hurt and we get to be guilt free
in doing it because the hurt person is 'clear cut' bad.

Sure that's why we enjoy most movies and computer games, but I think taking it
to real life is a step again.

There's a nasty undercurrent in these sort of things on the internet like
nigeria scammers scammers.

Always remember more often than not the people participating in these crimes
do it due to mental illness or desperation.

I'm not saying let them get away with it, I'm not saying don't blog about it.
I'm just saying in my opinion perhaps try not to celebrate it to much.

~~~
jdaley
Everyone should keep this in mind. I find the Nigerian scammer-scammer stories
entertaining because of the vigilantism, but it's perverse entertainment
knowing that many of the scammers are driven to it by desperation. Likewise, I
got a kick out of this article, but we don't know the thief's personal
situation. The author handled the situation fairly and doesn't revel in the
revenge, but vigilantism and revenge is the reason the article goes viral.

~~~
icebraining
How was this vigilantism? The only people who applied a sanction to the thief
were cops; he never used force or meted out any kind of extralegal punishment.

------
ateev23
I dont know who you are, i dont know what you want but if you take my dlsr
away, i will find you.

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helloamar
Lovely plan

------
_fs
Fake... No craigslist buyer or seller ever arrives on time.

------
Sujan
Sorry, but this sounds fake.

~~~
alenart
How so? The only thing I'm skeptical about is I would imagine his local PD
would be way busy to go on a petty theft bust but other than that it sounds
legit.

~~~
fsckin
Depending on the lens, it could be grand theft.

~~~
alenart
Good point, GT is above what amount in California? Unless it's really high,
it's really easy for a lens to fall in that GT category.

~~~
fsckin
Wikipedia says $400.

