Meet the 22 dumbest criminals of all time

Two machete-wielding men barged into a Sydney, Australia, bar demanding money. They didn’t know the club was hosting a bikers’ meeting at the time. One of the robbers ended up in the hospital, the other hog-tied with electrical wire.

Find out what are the most sought-after items on every burglar’s hit list.

A German bank robber sent mocking emails to local police, ridiculing their efforts to arrest him. First, he let them know they had his age, build and accent wrong. Then he corrected their announcement that he’d escaped on foot; no, he had a getaway car! The cops got the last word in, though, when they arrested the guy a few hours later. They used his email to trace him.

According to the bus driver, it was a brutal, unprovoked attack. A woman got on his bus and assaulted him with a half-eaten banana. “I had banana all over me,” he insisted. “On my tie, my shirt and my eye.” The woman explained that the driver had almost hit her car and that when she entered the bus to rationally discuss the matter, the banana slipped … right into his tie, his shirt, his eye … The court may not have believed that, but it did believe her when she argued that it was “unreasonable that a banana could cause this much damage.” They slapped her with a fine of only about $100.

Here are some more clever uses for bananas you probably never knew.

Police in Pico Rivera, California, had an easy time pinning a four-year-old murder on Anthony Garcia. That’s because he pinned it on himself – with an elaborate tattoo on his chest, depicting the killing. Cops noticed the incriminating ink when taking Garcia’s mug shot for a petty crime. The tattoo revealed all the details of the night, from the Christmas lights and bent streetlamp near the bottle shop where the body was found to the image of an angry helicopter – Garcia’s nickname was Chopper – machine-gunning the victim.

The victim’s jewellery was missing, the electronics were gone, and a window was smashed. No wonder she was hysterical when officer Charanjit Meharu of the Calgary police arrived. Then her French-speaking father called. Speaking in French, she explained that it was all a scam in order to get the insurance money. What she didn’t suspect was that Officer Meharu speaks six languages, including French.

A 12-year-old boy adamantly denied having stolen an iPhone when questioned by police at his home. And then the iPhone rang in his closet. Okay, yes, he stole that. But as for the Blackberry he was also accused of stealing, he double-adamantly denied… *RING!!*

These are the iPhone privacy settings you should check right now.

Clive Halford thinks big! The British career criminal stole a truck and loaded it with 18 pallets of stolen nickel and copper worth around £150,000 (about $278,000). Yes, the haul was huge – too huge. Cops arrested Halford after the truck’s suspension collapsed under the weight. Earlier, Halford had stolen a car, overloaded it, and broken its suspension too.

Don’t you hate it when you suffer a heart attack and think you’re going to die, so you confess to a 17-year-old murder, only to find out you’re not going to die and then get sentenced to life in prison as a result? Yeah, so does James Washington, of Nashville, USA, because it happened to him.

Don’t miss these chest pains you might mistake for a heart attack.

Callie Rough of Ohio, USA, was picked up for shoplifting from a Dollar Shop with her two young children in tow. Among the booty was a book, 101 Ways to Be a Great Mom.

Following a dispute, Craig Aylesworth, of Florida, USA< allegedly tossed a Molotov Cocktail at his neighbour’s mobile home … just as the winds shifted, sending embers on to his own mobile home. Luckily, he was arrested, since he no longer had a home of his own to return to.