Commentary

No good thieves here

P AND I are wondering if there are good thieves. In Jamaica we would have to say nope there are no good thieves.

We define a good thief as:

A thief who selects a victim that will not suffer (really). Banks, stinking rich people who squander their money anyway and have no cares for the welfare of others etc.

A thief who has, and stoutly defends, a no injury or harm policy to his victims.

A thief who works hard at his craft. plans, executes with extreme precision.

A thief must have a conscience ­ return some of his/her loot if the situation demands it.

There are no Jamaican thieves who come anywhere near to meeting any of these standards. This should be no surprise really.

But those Brazilian bank robbers that the Gleaner reported on yesterday are right up there among the good thieves in hell.

The boys from Brazil stole US$67.8 million from the nation's central bank. They spent three months digging a hi-tech tunnel to the bank's vault. The tunnel, the AP report states: "Had wooden panels and plastic sheets lining the walls, as well as electric lighting." They fired no shots. Injured no one.

This does seem like a tale from a Hollywood script. But it is not.

When you seriously think about the feat pulled off by these thieves you can't help but say those guys were good. Thieves though they are, you do have a spark of admiration for the idea and the execution of the idea - talk the truth. We are sure the Brazilian cops and the poor security chief for the central bank must be looking on in awe.

It is probably a measure of our lack of creativity and patience as a people that the majority of Jamaican thieves resort to extreme and vicious levels of violence when they are perpetrating their dastardly acts.

P was reminding me too about a set of crooks in England who rented a shop space on a High Street (a main road in a British town) and they set up a false ATM machine, false, but looking well authentic with the necessary signal and stuff. Along come unsuspecting John and Jane Public pushing in their card and OOPS no money. Meanwhile the crooks were busily capturing all the necessary data and putting it on to new cards and getting ready to clean out the accounts.

Cool plan. But of course these thieves cannot qualify as good crooks since their victims were regular Joes and would suffer. But they are creative though.

P and I have also heard of people who have sold public bridges and statues. That they could find people stupid enough to fall for their ploy should not be considered criminal. In fact we think that the people who purchased the bridges and the statues should be the ones charged with air-headedness.

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