What with all the massive busts and small-time stabbings, the mob just ain't what it used to be. Nowadays nobody takes any pride in their work, as evidenced by a recent Albanian mob hit gone awry in the Bronx. According to the Post, Bajram Lajqi was upset at an associate who had helped him smuggle drugs so Lajqi set out kill the man as he left the Tosca Cafe. After he and a partner slashed their target's tires, the plan was to wait for him to leave the restaurant and quietly kill him before he could escape. At the last second Lajqi felt this wasn't an inspired enough plan, and ended up punching him in the face in the restaurant. A punch? Where's the ice pick? Where's the head-in-the-vice? more ›

And this week in dumb criminal tricks we present you with the story of 40-year-old Gus Bougas of Queens. Bougas was arrested yesterday on the East Side near the Queensboro Bridge after being caught inside of a candy store he had just robbed a half-hour before. Maybe he forgot his wallet? more ›

Benito Barrios walked into a local precinct house in Staten Island Thursday night claiming that he "discovered" a 25-pound bag of pot in a delivery made to his furniture store. Cops then "discovered" 50 more pounds, hidden in his garden and arrested Barrios and his wife. There was no word on if Barrios was discovered to be totally blazed when he showed up at the station. more ›

Faced with a shrinking market for independent cinema, two young Queens men thought that they had a surefire treatment to make their visions of indie success into a guaranteed hit: they'd sell off all of the film equipment that they had rented. Omar Tineo and Robert Perez rented a high-end digital camera, a tripod and some lenses from Red One Camera in order to "make an independent film" and then almost immediately put them up for sale on craigslist for $17,000. Luckily for them, there were interested buyers almost immediately, meaning they wouldn't have to waste much of the $900/a day Tineo was being charged for the equipment on his credit card. Unfortunately for the pair of men in their early twenties, the potential customers they went to meet on the Lower East Side were undercover cops who arrested them on charges of grand larceny and possession of stolen property. The Post calls the incident "a live remake of Dumb and Dumber" and talks to someone related to the case who calls the pair, "Complete morons. They tried a get-rich-quick scheme and it backfired." There was no word on the status of the film. more ›

A man was caught stealing an $85,000 nude painting from a Chelsea gallery when he attempted to resell it the next day. 41-year-old Robert Fahey went to DJT Fine Art Gallery and pulled the old "fire some questions at the manager and ask to see something in the back," followed by the "grab the painting and run like hell" move once the gallery manager was out of sight. But within twenty-four hours, cops got a tip that Fahey was already trying to hock "Blue Nude #10" and arrested him at his Woodside home. The Post points out more than once that the theft was nothing like Pierce Brosnan's Thomas Crown Affair, but fails to mention how close it was to the methods utilized by AC Slater asking a sporting goods salesman for hogskin footballs in the "U2 Tickets" episode of Saved by the Bell. more ›