Eideard

Stephan Brooks, a postal worker, was caught stealing penis enlargement pills from a parcel.

Brooks was spotted by his manager using a penknife to slice open post at his job at the Royal Mail sorting office in Chelmsford, Essex. The 47-year-old from Benfleet, Essex was put under two days of surveillance.

Investigators watched as Brooks helped himself to a pot of VigRX – a penis enlargement supplement – from a parcel he had opened.

Staff watched Brooks opened up parcel after parcel, checking contents before putting them back if they were of no interest. During a second day of CCTV surveillance he took his penknife to seven more packages and stole cash…

Brooks was confronted by security staff and asked that he be allowed to turn himself in to police…

Brooks was handed a six-month suspended sentence at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court after admitting two counts of theft and three charges of unlawfully opening Royal Mail packages…

Other items Brooks nabbed included Ray-Ban sunglasses, a designer watch, cufflinks and a harmonica.

A Renaissance thief – though his mates will never let him hear the end of stealing penis enlargement pills. No doubt.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Soldiers in Mexico have seized $15.3 million in cash, believed to belong to the country’s most wanted drug lord, Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman.

The security forces said they found the money when they searched a car in a well-to do neighbourhood of Tijuana, on the US-Mexico border. They said the money was being taken to a safe house used by Shorty Guzman and his gang, the powerful Sinaloa cartel.

It is the second largest cash seizure since Felipe Calderon became president.

Defence Ministry spokesman Gen Ricardo Trevilla said the find was made during a “surprise operation” in the Cumbres de Juarez neighbourhood of Tijuana, in Baja California state.

He said the soldiers found $15.35m in cash, 3kg of cocaine, four weapons, and jewellery inside the car…

He did not say what led the troops to the cash. No arrests were made.

No arrests were made? No idea who the car belonged to? No search of nearby houses?

Are we to think the drogas drop a car full of cash and coke blocks away from easy access?

They have all taken the traditional vow of poverty, so police and tax inspectors in Spain want to know why the nuns at Zaragoza’s Santa Lucia convent claimed that a robber had stolen €1.5million in cash from them.

The nuns’ unorthodox banking system, using dozens of black bin liners stuffed with high denomination euro banknotes, has made investigators suspect that the cash they handled did not come solely from the Sunday collection plate. The fact that they later changed their story to claim that the money that disappeared while they were saying their prayers a fortnight ago only amounted to €450,000 has done nothing to allay those suspicions.

According to the evidence given to police, the nuns kept their haul of cash in a locked cupboard, much of it in the €500 notes favoured by those paying for, or receiving, services in Spain’s abundant black economy…

The nuns said they had been preparing to distribute some of the money to other convents in financial difficulties. Unlike most of the nuns who live in the hundreds of crumbling, half-empty convents dotted around Spain, the 16 Cistercians at Santa Lucia have no financial problems.

As expert restorers of old books, their services are constantly required by libraries and private collectors. Neighbours said the convent was always busy, with the nuns’ white van constantly driving in and out of the gates. One of their number, Sister Isabel Guerra, is a renowned portrait painter whose pictures fetch up to €40,000 each and are key to maintaining other Cistercian convents around Spain…

The nuns’ lawyer, Jesús Garcia Huíci, said…”The money comes from a lifetime of saving.”

So, if they are telling the truth, why didn’t they use a bank. I doubt if there’s a dicho in their catechism about refusing interest on savings.

Nope – changing your story to reduce the cash stolen by two-thirds is another footnote that prompts a bit more than curiosity.

A miracle? Not really…

Canada — A Burlington woman who police say pretended to have cancer to raise money for herself appeared briefly in a Milton court Monday morning. Ashley Anne Kirilow is facing three counts of fraud under $5,000.

On Saturday, Kirilow’s father said he had no plans to post bail for his estranged daughter and no family members were present at her bail hearing.

Because no one showed up to act as her surety, Kirilow’s bail hearing was put over until Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. to give her more time to secure bail money.

Kirilow appeared briefly in court dressed in a pale, peach-coloured frock and blue runners. Her light brown hair, now grown out, was tucked behind her ears…

Jackie Musial, 21, came from Oakville with her friend Meredith Dejonge, 25, to attend Kirilow’s bail hearing in Milton.

Both women say they were friends with Kirilow and were stunned to learn they had been lied to.

The two women aren’t exactly sure why they felt compelled to attend Kirilow’s bail hearing but they both wanted to see the woman they once considered a friend…

Musial said she never suspected Kirilow might have been lying about her illness. The woman was a convincing patient, she said, and would frequently update her Facebook status from the “hospital” or end online conversations by saying she had to go for a chemotherapy treatment…

But now, Musial wants nothing to do with Kirilow. “Everyone’s going to know her as the girl who faked cancer,” she said.

“It’s hard to escape when it’s tattooed on her hands,” she added, referring to the markings Kirilow had tattooed on her hands in tribute to her alleged cancer.

Folks, I’m a firm believer in charity. Please, check out who and what you’re giving your money to!

French police have arrested an Air France stewardess on suspicion of stealing thousands of euros in cash, cards and jewelry as passengers slept on long haul flights.

Police investigating thefts over several months on flights between France and the Far East picked up the 47-year old attendant identified as Lucie R. after she landed from Tokyo on Friday, Le Figaro said…

Police launched an investigation in January after about 4,000 euros was stolen from five passengers. The robber took advantage of sleeping passengers, taking euros, yen, and Swiss francs as well as watches, jewels, credit cards and even cheque books.

According to the newspaper, the woman, who worked mainly in business class, began her spree in March 2009 to ease financial problems and has confessed to 26 thefts…

Police found travelers’ cheques, blank cheques and bank card numbers at her home, the newspaper said.

Ah, the friendly skies.

In many countries, debit and credit cards are steadily taking the place of cash in everyday transactions. In Sweden, the process has been given new momentum by a campaign to cut crime…

The campaign has some high-profile supporters, including former Abba band member Bjorn Ulvaeus.

“There are no direct practical reasons, as far as I can see, to have coins and banknotes,” he wrote in a recent blog post…

He said that it was “patronising” to assume that the elderly, for example, would have problems paying for goods or services over the internet or with a card.

“There are, of course, those who need help, but if as a result they run less of a risk of being robbed, then perhaps it would be worth the inconvenience,” he wrote.

Buses in Stockholm have already gone cash-free. Strips of tickets or sim-based bus cards can be bought in advance, or payments can be made via mobile phones. After a series of attacks against bus drivers, Sweden’s health and safety authority stepped in and told the bus companies they had to find a way of protecting the cash more securely. The result was that buses stopped accepting notes or coins.

“All indications are that there have been a lot fewer problems on the buses. The drivers are very happy with the situation,” says Bernt Nilsson of the Swedish Work Environment Authority.

The Swedish central bank takes no position in this debate. But in a speech earlier this year, the bank’s deputy governor Lars Nyberg highlighted the higher cost to society of cash transactions, compared with those made with credit or debit cards.

Citing a survey from 2002 he said: “It is much more likely that the costs of using cash have increased rather than decreased. For example, the costs for increasing the security of transportation and ATMs have been substantial…”

Sweden’s version of Ron Paul/Tea Party libertarians oppose the idea. Cash preserves privacy, anonymity. They worry about little electronic footprints trailing around behind you wherever you go.

A Bangladeshi taxi driver in New York City has gone out of his way to track down the person who left thousands of dollars in cash in the back of his cab.

Mukul Asadujjaman, a medical student, drove nearly 80km to an address he found with the money.

He left his phone number when he found no-one at home. The money belonged to an Italian grandmother visiting the US…

Felicia Lettieri, of Pompeii, Italy, and six relatives had taken two cabs on Christmas Eve, Newsday newspaper reported.

Mrs Lettieri, 72, left her handbag behind, with more than $21,000 of the group’s travelling money, jewellery worth thousands more, and some of their passports.

Her sister, Francesca Lettieri, 79, of Long Island, said the honest driver had saved her family’s vacation…

He also turned down a reward, saying he could not accept it as a devout Muslim, Newsday reported.

“I’m needy, but I’m not greedy,” he said. “It’s better to be honest.”

Right on! A tale worth re-telling.

A Chinese environmental official has urged hastening the national elimination of high-emission vehicles to help curb urban air pollution.

“The automobile emissions have become main sources of air pollution in Chinese large and medium-sized cities,” said Li Xinmin, an official with the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

“High-emission cars and trucks only make up 28 percent of all automobiles in China, but they are responsible for 75 percent of the pollutant emissions,” Li said.

Automobiles which fail to meet the National Emission Standard I are listed as high-emission vehicles in China…

“We encourage local governments to increase financial support in eliminating high-emission vehicles, especially in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. It’s good for reducing air pollution and introducing more automobiles of low pollution,” Li said.

Most industrialized nations have instituted similar policies. Virtually all had no problem with ideological dimwits while doing so. Of course.

Click on the picture to see all Top Ten and where they’re made

Congress has passed a $2 billion extension of the popular “cash for clunkers” program, clearing the legislation for President Barack Obama’s signature. The Senate passed the extension Thursday evening. The House approved the measure last week.

Lawmakers made sure to keep the popular program alive before heading home for a monthlong vacation.

Acting with unusual haste, the Senate readied a $2 billion fill-up Thursday night for “cash for clunkers,” the economy-boosting program that caught the fancy of car buyers and instantly increased sales for an auto industry long mired in recession.

Supporters of the program hailed its effect on the auto industry — which had its best month in nearly a year in July — as well as its claimed environmental benefits.

“The reality is this is a program that has been working. Consumers believe it’s working. Small business people believe it’s working. People who make steel and aluminum and advertisers … and everyone who’s involved in the larger economic impact of the auto industry believe it is working,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.

The legislation had its share of critics, though, most of them Republicans.

And I dearly hope that some of the folks who already bought a new car through the program drop in and pay a little visit on the priests of ideological purity who think they should not have had help getting that car.

The average replacement car gets almost 10mpg better than the clunker it replaced. All but one were compact and medium-size cars – and the trade-ins were almost all SUV’s and trucks.

Meanwhile, on the next concourse…

Steve Bierfeldt says the Transportation Security Administration pulled him aside for extra questioning in March. He was carrying a pocket edition of the U.S. Constitution and an iPhone capable of making audio recordings. And he used them…

On a recording a TSA agent can be heard berating Bierfeldt. One sample: “You want to play smartass, and I’m not going to play your f**king game.”

Bierfeldt is director of development for the Campaign for Liberty, an outgrowth of the Ron Paul presidential campaign. He was returning from a regional conference March 29 when TSA screeners at Lambert-St. Louis (Illinois) International Airport saw a metal cash box in his carry-on bag. Inside was more than $4,700 dollars in cash — proceeds from the sale of political merchandise like T-shirts and books…

Officer: Why do you have this money? That’s the question, that’s the major question.

Bierfeldt: Yes, sir, and I’m asking whether I’m legally required to answer that question.

Officer: Answer that question first, why do you have this money.

Bierfeldt: Am I legally required to answer that question?

Officer: So you refuse to answer that question?

Bierfeldt: No, sir, I am not refusing.

Officer: Well, you’re not answering.

Bierfeldt: I’m simply asking my rights under the law.

The officers can be heard saying they will involve the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration, and appear to threaten arrest, saying they are going to transport Bierfeldt to the local police station, in handcuffs if necessary.

The American way of making air travel exciting. If you still travel by air. I don’t.