Overlawyered – December 7, 2007:

Find a wallet, go to jail? New York undercover cops have been leaving wallets and purses around in public spots in the city, then arresting anyone who picks them up and doesn’t present them to a nearby uniformed officer. Some arrestees have otherwise clean records and say they intended to use ID inside the bags to notify the rightful owners. Putting money inside the bags didn’t lead to serious enough charges, in the coppers’ view, so they began salting them with live American Express cards so that the finders could be charged with grand larceny, with four years behind bars.

Over 300 People arrested so far…

The NYPD revealed Wednesday its Operation Lucky Bag stings have snared nearly 300 people – many of whom had no rap sheet before they fell for the ruse.

Since the start of the year, there have been 100 arrests as a result of the decoy operations, in which an undercover officer “drops” a wallet, iPod or cell phone in a subway station and cops pounce after it’s picked up.



  1. m says:

    hey, if that’s the law, just start taking every piece of crap you find on the street to the cop shop. let them deal with it. and then have people calling the cop shops with- ‘hey, i lost my glasses, so can you look for them?’ make them regret this bullshit by having to deal with tons of crap on the street. f’n cops.

  2. Ice T says:

    I guess my namesake had it right all these years…

  3. Dorksters says:

    My friend in NYC left her Moto Razr somewhere, but it was mailed to her by someone (no name) at no cost to her.

    Her car was hit by a cab, and when she called the cops over (because the cabbie was pressuring her to settle the damage right there), the cops threatened her and wrote her a ticket.

    So, I would trust the people of NYC more than the police (and some cabbies). Funny huh?

  4. meetsy says:

    I’ve mailed back several wallets I’ve found, because, GUESS WHAT…the ID has an address on it! The cops put it in unclaimed property, never can find it, and then put it on Ebay at the end of the “holding” time (at least in most major metro areas).
    This is stupid, and I cannot believe that they can actually prove INTENT. Looks to me like another way to add $$ to the city fund. That is all cops and the court system has become a cash generating engine.
    Yeah, time to reset. Things aren’t working.

  5. Soviet Canukistan says:

    #32

    Are you talking about Fuck the Police? That was Ice Cube and NWA.

  6. Sac Mars says:

    God-damned mindless grunts. And yes, I mean that in the disparaging way. As in neanderthal communication abilities.

    The next level of incrimination will be based on glancing at items on the floor too long.

  7. Jolly Roger says:

    I was arrested for smoking pot. The only problem was that I didn’t have any pot, so the NYPD was good enough to provide me with some, and then lock me up for two days. I heard similar stories from several others I was locked up with. I hope people are waking up to what’s going on in this country, and to what needs to be done.
    Nobody’s happy about it, but it’s time for American men to start behaving like men and drop the new metro-sexual, sissy lifestyle.
    I know it’s a lot easier to be a fag, because you never have to fight if you’re a girl, but anything that’s decent in this world only exists because good men were willing to fight for it. Grow a pair of cajones, and stop being a defenseless sissy.

  8. Webb Traverse says:

    Maybe it’s about time we started dry-gulching some of these cops. It ain’t that hard…

  9. STFU says:

    #37 – That attitude will get you tasered in a heart beat.

  10. VICB3 says:

    People resent being turned into criminals.

  11. ShawnC says:

    All these arrests should be thrown right out of court. There is nothing in the law in NY that says that if you find anything you have to immeadiately give it to a police officer. In all of these cases the police are arresting people for what they suppose the persons intent is. Of course if the bait is not handed over to a police officer the suspect must be intent on keeping (stealing?) it right? Judges should ask just how the police are able to read minds. Last time I checked people cannot be arrested for thought crimes.

  12. Finn says:

    Ron Paul reset for the world.

  13. Chooch says:

    An old lullaby in the British Caribbean (Antilles) Islands:
    You must look, but you mustn’t touch.
    You mustn’t touch.
    Keep your hands off.
    Look at everything, but don’t touch a thing.
    Don’t be so rude.

  14. dogismyth says:

    DOGISMYTH:

    How long are we going to take this shit?! Now is the time to demand OUR RIGHTS as citizens of this country. Either you have a backbone, or you are an eel. I say we take this to the streets…I’m ready!!!

    Look at this crap. Another slap in our face! PLEASE READ…YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS. FORWARD TO EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!

    http://tinyurl.com/22wf5t

  15. joe says:

    Unbefuckinlievable!!!

    GO RON PAUL!!!

  16. gmathol says:

    Enter the search argument “police brutality” on YouTube or the internet and you have plenty of evidence such as like tasering a pregnant woman, beating up grandma and the like.

    American’s just don’t understand that they live in a police state and even if you ask a policeman for direction he just might shot you.

    Something is very wrong!

    The Justice systems always sides with the police force.

    Get your country back.

  17. Glenn E. says:

    Gee, I wonder if it’s against the law in NYC to kick the item into the street?! That’s what this will end up encouraging. Poeple will see something like a wallet or iPod, and field kick it as far as they can. Hey Cops! Chase after this. Zoooom!! I seem to remember hearing that all one needed to do was toss the item in the nearest mailbox. What do you want to bet that the NY cops drop the wallets as far from a mailbox as possible. And I’ll bet the nearest cop isn’t so easy to find, either. Meanwhile they’re killing the Good Samaritan in most of us. Bet they already pre-warned prominent citizens like Donald Trump, not to pick up lost wallets. You know there’s got to be an exclusion list. “Don’t arrest the Donald.”

  18. mcosmi says:

    and it just got funnier…my friend found one of these decoy wallets and approached the officer and handed it to him and they were so impressed that he actually got his choice of a 10 dollar gift card for either Starbucks…or….wait for it…..you guessed…..DUNKIN DONUTS!!!!

    Can you believe this shit? True story…I live in Manhattan, and its true that this just adds to ‘why should I get involved’ attitude here. Reminds me of when Tom Green laid face down on a NYC street sidewalk for 45 min before someone actually asked if he was ok. People were practically tripping over him.

  19. Tex says:

    Didn’t they just finish trying a group of Army snipers in Iraq for using the same tactics? They’d throw a prohibited item down and shoot anyone who picked it up.
    I wonder how long it’ll be before the NYPD realizes how inefficient arresting the people who pick up the bait is, and just start offing them.

  20. noodle says:

    Ah, the land of the free… Damn scarey place America.

  21. trog of dor says:

    welcome to ameriKa tra la la la la

    this is what happens in an over reaching police state. We were all scared into letting this happen.

    Its two choices. The leaders of the NYC police dept. are either mentally retarded or they are trained chimps. You decide.

  22. rub says:

    This reveals that individuals often are unable to do anything effective to protect themselves against abuses committed by persons employed by our social systems. This is a serious flaw which can only be worked out over time by pragmatic means. Unfortunately, pragmatic means tend to require unpleasant actions. Therefore, the future results of such actions can be foreseen. First the abuse. Then the inability to prevent it. Then the numerous attempts -by trial and error- by the abused, to prevent it. Then the discovery of an effective response. Then the end of the abuse. The time between the abuse and the discovery of an effective response sometimes tends to be protracted, and the attempts misunderstood and not well thought out.

  23. Whenever I find a wallet or purse, I try to return it to its rightful owner.

    I trust myself; cops I trust less.
    Why turn it in to possibly corrupt cop?

  24. Li says:

    The more I read stories like this, the less I recognize the country grew up in, and the freedom that my ancestors fought and, at times, died for.

  25. the Three-Headed Cat says:

    The next time I hear a cop whining about how they don’t get any respect, I’m afraid I’ll bust a gut laughing.

    Respect the kind of baggy-lipped smutbuckets that would stoop to this kind of petit warfare against the very people they’re paid to protect?

    And to the cops who wouldn’t participate in such dirty shit – then, how about standing up against it, Mr./Ms. Brave Hero?

  26. We need a change!

  27. I’m envisioning a donut, a fishing pole, and an open manhole. See where I’m going with this?

  28. fallstampa says:

    Look at the effect, the two sides growing further apart resenting each other more and more. I believe this is encouraged so martial law will be easier to impose. Slowly but surely,

  29. PoliticallyVeryCorrect says:

    #50 it was “land of the free” 100+ years ago, since then it is “land of the RICH free” or just the “land” for the rest.

  30. jbellies says:

    I think the scenario suggests the following procedure for Grandmalusians (that’s phony Latin for “New Yorkers”).

    If you see a wallet in the street, walk over to it. Look around. If you
    a) see a cop, then
    kick the wallet over so that it is next to or even under a piece of refuse, such as a dog turd. In this way you protect the uninitiated from being stung. Walk over to the cop and get him to come over and inspect the lost wallet… OR

    b) don’t see a cop, then
    call 911.

    #10 Sting operations have been done in Canada. For example, possession marijuana convictions are not very interesting to the cops or prosecutors. It’s about like jaywalking. Traffiking, however …

    So they recruit a young copette who is drop-dead gorgeous to walk down the pedestrian mall, and if possible initiate a chat with the suspect (or maybe any young male in the area, I don’t know). With hormones surging, he’d climb an office tower with his fingernails for this vision of beauty, but all she wants is something to smoke … traffiking.

    The perpetrators (cops and prosecutors) who arrange this charade may defend it by saying that they know from other evidence that the young man is a traffiker, this is merely evidence to prove it. I say: dog turds. It brings the administration of justice into disrepute. As does the NY thing, in trumps.


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