I believe that criminals often find creative ideas not because they are really creative people (research shows that they are less creative than average…), but simply because they have no choice.
And not having choice is the mother of creativity.
So here’s a story I once heard on the radio. It’s about an interesting car theft method:
A gang innocently rented a car, but then forged the documents making them identical to those of an existing car of the same make, and replaced its license plate with that of another car (that’s the dirty part. Well…if you want to steal cars, you probably have to get your hands dirty too!)
They then sold the car. There was no problem selling the car because of the forged documents, but there is still a different problem… the car needs to be returned to the rental car company.
No problem.
Our gang then steals the car after selling it. There is no problem doing this because they have the keys and the codes.
And now all they have to do is return the car safely.
Very elegant!
This story shows that creativity is very much like computer hacking. Every system that is complex enough must have weak points and bugs. All we need to do is identify them…
But eventually they were caught, so even when done creatively, crime does not pay off (wearing my educationist hat…)
See you in my next posting,
Roni
Visit Roni at the start2think website
Here is another story I heard from my friend that took place in South America. A gang needs to delivers a large shipment of drugs between two countries. Smuggling through the border is too dangerous and can be ended with many years at jail. What can they do? They stole a very fancy car from A country and moved it to B country –it is very less dangerous if they will be caught. Than they called the car’s owner who is probably very attached to his fancy car and tell him, like it was an act of good behavior that the car is found in B country at a town very close to the border. The owner is willing to pay a little effort to bring back is loving car so he travel to B country and found his car, at the exact place he was told, harmless. Without any suspicion he drives with his fancy car trough the border back to A country, thinking that the Lord is really working in mysterious ways. The next morning he found his car broken open and all the seats are cut off – the gang used the innocent man to be their drugs courier. If the drugs shipment will be caught at the customs, there is no evidence that the gang is involved and all the blame will be on that man.
Even though I can’t recall the source, here is another interesting story:
Cigarette manufacturers were concerned because of illegal cigarette selling activity (smuggling) happening in a territory connected by a sea.
Those cigarettes weren’t imitations, they were the real ones, and sold much below retail price.
What was the first strategy designed and implemented by the cigarrete manufacturers?
They mimicked the smugglers’ distribution structure in that area, much cheaper than the legal one. (Multiplication pattern)
Some mental gym: Additional effective strategies anyone?
Cheers!
Fabian.