The 10 most bungled robberies ever

Earlier this year Money Central bought you the 10 most infamous heists. But what about the less successful attempts at robbery? From a pregnant woman in rubber gloves to cousins robbing their family’s post office, there have been many unlikely – and unsuccessful – criminals. Here are Times Money’s top 10 bungled robberies from around the world.

1. “Macclesfield’s dumbest”

England 2008: Mark Ridgeway – a man branded as one of "Macclesfield’s dumbest" burglars by a local police officer – has been the infamous perpetrator of two bungled robberies.

Last year Ridgeway broke into a campsite in Adlington, Lancashire, where his accomplice scribbled his name on the wall for all to see. On that occasion, he was caught by police fleeing while wearing a stolen T-shirt.

The following year, he used a crowbar to break into his mother’s house. But according to the Macclesfield Express: “The brazen burglar paused to steal food and prepare himself a buttie before fleeing with more than £150 cash... leaving incriminating fingerprints everywhere.” Ridgeway later pleaded guilty to the charge of burglary of a dwelling.

2. Bread rolls

Australia 2008: A man and woman in Melbourne were sent to jail earlier this year for the attempted robbery of the Cuckoo restaurant at Olinda - appropriately carried out last April Fool's Day.

Benjamin Jorgensen, 38, stole a bag he thought contained $30,000, but in fact contained only bread rolls. During the hold-up he shot his accomplice, 36-year-old Donna Hayes, in the buttock.

Both pleaded guilty to armed robbery. Victorian County Court Judge Williams told the hearing the robbery was a complete fiasco and the two were a pair of fools.

3. Goodfella wannabes

USA 1992: A mechanic and a security guard from New York decided to rob their local convenience store after being inspired by Goodfellas, the gangster film (pictured above). However, the owner of the store instantly recognised the men, who brandished a BB gun and made off with just $75 before making their getaway in a car belonging to one of the men’s sister. Police waited for the men at their home, where they were arrested after their red Volare drove up containing the $75 loot.

"It wasn't the detective work of the century," acknowledged Detective Kenneth Meyer of the Eighth Precinct.

4. Rubber gloves

USA 2008: Last month a 20-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of robbing Titusville Credit Union. A woman disguised with a baseball cap, rubber gloves and sunglasses went into the union and attempted a robbery – but police soon caught up with her and she was arrested.

Incredibly, witnesses said that the woman was heavily pregnant and had left a toddler in the car while she allegedly committed the crime.

5. Electric shock

China 2006: The robbery of a power supply office in the Jiangsu Province went horribly wrong for two criminals after one of them decided to urinate on a mains switch on his way out, causing burns and electric shock. A duty officer at the office called police, who took the injured man to hospital and the other into custody.

6. Asda stick up

England 2008: Ryan Eddison, 21, was described in court as a "low level criminal who was completely out of his league" after trying to hold up a security van containing £75,000 at an Asda store in Rawtenstall, Lancashire.

In full view of shoppers, the security van driver was able to set off the emergency alarm, which lead to the Eddison and his accomplice fleeing in their stolen getaway car. The vehicle was then torched and abandoned – but the fire went out, leaving the men’s fingerprints in tact. Eddison was sentenced to four years in prison.

7. Keeping it in the family

Scotland 2008: Two cousins who robbed a post office owned by their family were described as “comic” by prosecuters in court. "To rob one's relative's post office in broad daylight in front of numerous witnesses in a small town like Tranent where everyone knew or recognised him almost beggars belief," Simon Collins told the High Court in Edinburgh.

The men had pounced on the post office’s security guard one morning, as he was delivering £20,000 of Sterling and Euro banknotes to the shop. But they did not realise a nearby resident had spotted them donning their balaclavas and had alerted police. The pair were later caught and jailed for a total of seven and a half years.

8. Black wig

USA 2008: At least the perpetrator of this failed robbery attempted to disguise himself. Huy Trong Luong, 39, of Jersey City, donned a black wig, sunglasses, a black Dolce & Golbana hat, women's make-up and a black jacket for a series of bank robberies – seven of which were successful.

He was eventually caught after a bungled attempt to rob a bank in Chatham, when police pulled over his getaway minivan to discover the offending disguise on the backseat.

9. “Hand the muny over”

Scotland 2006: A man who robbed a Glasgow bookmakers with a plastic bottle in a rolled-up newspaper committed a "a particularly ill-thought out" offence, his defending lawyer admitted in court.

Jason Kelly targeted the bookies in an area where he was well known. After handing over a note to the cashier with the words "Hand the muny over. Theel be no trouble," he walked away with £450 before being caught moments later in a nearby street, with the money in his pocket.

10. Drug loot

US 2008: A Californian couple rang the police to report that they had been robbed at gunpoint in their own home. When the police asked what was stolen the pair listed 65 marijuana plants, nearly three kilos of the drug itself and a shotgun. Unsurprisingly, the couple, who had three outstanding warrants, were arrested.

Lauren Thompson

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Comments

[the impaler]

but surely none compares with a story in my local paper ten or fifteen years ago, recounting 2 guys stealing the white line painting machine from the local cricket club., wheeling it down the road to their house ...........
oh, i remember now how much i ached with laughter at the time

[skydog]

While we're on the subject of spelling, the word "lead" is not the past tense of the verb "to lead." "Led" is. Unfortunately, since "led" and the grayish-white element "lead" are pronounced the same, nobody knows the difference any more.

[Mr Sheen]

The man (in Scotland!) who filled the counterfoil of a weekly football betting coupon with the correct score in every game, then went to Ladbroke's to claim his money, saying he had put the original bet on at another branch. He was asked to come back in a few minutes, as they would have to go the bank for the £4bn they owed him. Guess who was waiting for him?

[Bob Nelson]

My favorite's the guys who tried to steal an ATM a few years ago. They wrapped a chain around there trunk's rear bumper and attached the chain to the ATM to pull it out of the wall. When they pressed the gas, the chain pulled there bumper off. They drove away anyhow, leaving their truck's bumper - license plate still attached!

[Christian]

You are missing the best one: Lehman Brothers executives who lost all their clients money but got rewarded with a multi-billion deal. ..incase they got depressed, I guess.

[mike]

In New Zealand there was a guy who tried to hold up a gun shop with a knife...yeah he got shot

[jhon brennan]

I was a PC in Newcastle when a budding criminal decided to steal petrol from a newly invented pound note activated petrol pump. He attempted to obtain petrol by pushing in a post card. His name and address were on the card.

[Burro]

A lady in Hong Kong stopped outside a bank entrance to pick up in a plastic bag the offending item her dog had just left.
As she turned to go on her way, she was assailed by 2 muggers who snatched what they thought was the swag bag. It is not known who the muggers were or what comments were later made.

[Brendan Halfweeg]

In March 2005 two 19 year old Australians on a working holiday in Vail, USA robbed their own bank branch while wearing name tags from the sports store where they worked and without disguising their accents. After snowboarding to their getaway vehicle, they proceeded to try to buy Rolex watches using $5 notes from the haul, were rebuffed, and went elsewhere to successfully buy diamonds. They took "gangsta style" photos of themselves in the toilets of a MacDonalds using a digital camera that was found on them when they were caught in Denver airport trying to flee to Mexico. The pair had previously been arrested for breaking windows with air guns that they subsequently used in the bank raid. The press labelled them Dumb and Dumber and the pair were gaoled for 4.5 and 5 year sentences.

[Chris]

Ha ha some classics there - however, Jane Campbells comment made me laugh the most!!
we don't have superiority complex - just the ability to read (and write) which on the evidence shown is a problem for the Scots!!

[moylan]

well when i went to check on the infamous clive bunyan google gave me back a link to the times

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/columnists/gary_slapper/article4224199.ece

The prize, however, for most quickly caught robber goes to Clive Bunyan. In 1970, he raided the village store in Cayton, Yorkshire. He burst into the shop carrying an imitation gun and wearing a motorcycle crash helmet, escaping with £157. But police were able to track him down swiftly from a single clue appearing in capital letters on the front of his crash helmet: CLIVE BUNYAN.

[Christine Armstrong]

I have a Macclesfield's even dumber.
A man broke into the shop next door to my office, missed the til full of money, on being disturbed ran up the stairs into the loft, through to my office next door (pursued by police), came in through the ceiling, broke through one office, kicked a hole in the wall to get to the second - my office - which was a dead end for him. He was arrested sitting at my desk!

[Spurs34]

I remember one that took place in Dublin many years ago. Two men robbed a bank and when they dashed out they discovered that the getaway car driver had wandered off to get some cigarettes and the car was locked with the keys inside.

[Merrily1941]

The following was not a robbery, but my favorite piece of news EVER was the attempted carjacking of a van full of karate teachers!!! Instant karma if there ever was such!

[Mathew]

The one that I remember which may have been close to make the top ten concerns a man who robbed his local bank, writing his demands on the back of a paying in slip, one of his own paying in slips. Another concerned a man who had sawn off the barrels of a family owned shot gun to commit a bank robbery, escaping with 3,000 pounds. Upôn his arrest, it was discovered that he had sawn off the barrels of an antique purdey, worth about £200,000.

[Bill Peter]

"The vehicle was then torched and abandoned – but the fire went out, leaving the men’s fingerprints in tact." Is "tact" something that is used in American cars that give clear fingerprints?

[Saxonhater]

@Northernbritaingoaway: We RULE you, you fool. Gordon Brown is a Scot. Before you point out that Cameron will soon succeed him, I'll point out that he too is of Scottish descent. The Royal family are Germans descended from the Scottish house of Stuart. Tony Blair was a Scot. etc. etc. You Saxons simply can't handle the fact that "Northern Britons" are made of superior stuff and always rise to the top. Pathetic! (And hilarious!)

[Laura Roberts]

Number 11: The theft of millions of taxpayer's money to purchase a shareholder-owned bank that had made incompetent decisions, the natural and proper result - ie. failure and collapse - of which the Labour government would not allow. Other collapses of other shareholder-owned firms met their approval as they didn't get involved. But the similar HBOS intervention showed the common factor to be "will it upset the public and lose us votes".

Number 12: The theft and daylight robbery of millions of social housing stock, stolen from the taxpayer who purchased them, given to the council tenants at less than market rents, and then given wholly to them for them to purchase at far below market rates, for them to then sell on and keep the massive profits. One of the biggest legalised thefts in the UK, and still continuing every day.

[NorthernBritainGoAway]

There is something deeply wrong with the Scots. Is there a sadder, more pathetic, bitter, ignorant bunch of people in the world? So sad really from a nation who effectivley inveted the enlightenment.

[Jake]

To Jane Campbell: Are you being sarcastic? If not, I strongly urge you to get over yourself and have a humour implant.

[ino]

a man in my home town in holland held up a bank and made off with a nice sum of money.... on his wooden shoes. a witness saw him run down the street, but because i was a terraced row she could not remember which house excactly he went into. luckily he had left his wooden shoes outside by the door, like you are suposed to...

[Keith Owen]

Jane Campbell - are you notably lacking in intelligence? Those words were written on the note he handed over. Want me to go over it for you again?

[Jane Campbell]

I find this blog offensive and request that it be taken down at once. The author has stereotyped the Scots in her rendering of a supposed "Glasgow accent". We are all citizens of a UNITED kingdom and it is time that the English lost their superiority complex.

[Col. Kilgore]

From DarwinAwards.com:

3 February 1990, Washington

The following mind-boggling attempt at a crime spree appeared to be the robber's first, due to his lack of a previous record of violence, and his terminally stupid choices:

1. His target was H&J Leather & Firearms. A gun shop.

2. The shop was full of customers - firearms customers.

3. To enter the shop, the robber had to step around a marked police patrol car parked at the front door.

4. A uniformed officer was standing at the counter, having coffee before work.

Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a holdup, and fired a few wild shots. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, covered by several customers who also drew their guns, thereby removing the confused criminal from the gene pool.

No one else was hurt.