10.
The Czech Republic President steals a pen, on camera.
Vaclav Klaus was the president of Czech Republic in 2011.
Now we don’t know how much Czech Republic Presidents earn but high ranking positions
like the leader of a country don’t exactly pay peanuts.
That makes this theft all the more ridiculous, as not only did Vaclav steal a pen, he stole
a ceremonial, jewel encrusted pen on live television.
Even if he was stupid enough to think the cameras there for the sole reason of filming
him sign a document wouldn’t catch him pilfering the ink coffin, it was a ceremonial pen.
As in, that’s exactly the kind of thing people would notice going missing.
When asked to comment Klaus simply responded that “he takes things all the time” which
obviously makes it okay.
9.
The king of Egypt steals a watch, from Winston Churchill.
King Farouk of Egypt, despite being a king with wealth to rival Nintendo, was a very,
very angry man and noted miser.
A miser for the uninformed is basically the kind of person who’d eat a 5 bean chili
and a packet of soap powder on Monday if they wanted a bubbly bath on Wednesday.
Farouk was noted to have the demeanour of a young child, as in, if Farouk saw something
he wanted, he’d just take it, regardless of the owner.
Along with stealing a watch from Winston Churchill, Farouk also stole from the Shah of Persia’s
coffin.
Because when you’re a king with god like power and a penchant for taking whatever you
felt like, ghosts pose little threat.
8.
The celebrity chef who stole onions, while buying champagne.
Though famous chefs probably don’t earn the same money as kings and presidents, the
fact that they own restaurants that charge a week’s wage for a chicken coated in tiger
eyes would indicate that they’re not exactly the kind of people who hurt for money, which
makes the case of Antony Worral Thompson all the more depressing.
The famed British chef was arrested in 2012 for stealing cheese, coleslaw, and onions
(among other items).
After the case gained steam Thompson broke down and confessed to crying himself to sleep
at night as well as stealing trivial items while at the same time buying hundreds of
pounds worth of champagne.
So if you thought rich people had it easy, just remember that somewhere out there a rich
guy is crying himself to sleep because he can’t stop stealing onions.
Then again, he’s doing that crying in a bedroom bigger than most of our houses, so
he can suck it up.
7.
The millionaire’s daughter who stole make-up, with 320 dollars in her purse.
Caroline Giuliani was caught in 2010 stealing several hundred dollars worth of make-up from
an expensive make-up shop.
After being caught and promptly told to cut that stuff out, she was dragged to a police
station where the police discovered she not only had double the amount of money necessary
to pay for the items she stole but that her parents were multi-millionaires.
Even worse, she left the precinct with no more than a slap on the wrist, which is rather
annoying when you consider that her father used to be the mayor of New York, and during
his time in office he championed legislation that would have punished people for crimes
as trivial as jay-walking.
She walked away from a shoplifting charge scot-free, because she was mad at her dad
and couldn’t help it.
Come on Caroline, if you’re angry at your dad at least put it on a rap album.
Then at least we could shoplift it so you know how much stealing hurts.
6.
The Indian restaurant owner, slash gold thief.
Madhukar Mohandas Prabhakar is a notorious thief who used to take taxis to the wealthy
Mumbai district of India where he would raid the crap out of any house he saw with the
lights off.
Though it’s not known how much of his ill gotten gains went to funding his lifestyle
and how much of his wealth came from his actual business, it’s safe to say Prabhakar was
a millionaire.
However unlike the other people on this list, Prabhakar didn’t steal for his own benefit,
he did it for his community, in which Prabhakar funded many projects making him very popular
with locals.
So hey, not all thieves are bad guys, but then again, Prabhakar was caught and arrested.
Maybe he should have tried moving to America, rich people never go to jail here.
5.
The millionaire who stole history, from a library.
Farhad Hakimzadeh was a wealthy, knowledgeable businesnman with an interest in rare books
and cultural history.
With that in mind, you’d expect a guy who loves books to be respectful of them and not
say, slash them to pieces to stick in his private collection where no one else could
see them.
But no, that’s exactly what he did.
Yes, despite being a lover of rare books and an author himself, Farhad saw absolutely nothing
wrong with destroying or damaging dozens of rare, irreplaceable tomes just to pad out
his own private collection.
Because hey, knowledge should be free, but awesome knowledge should be locked in a rich
guy’s library.
That’s education 101.
4.
The politician who claimed back the money he gave to charity.
The MP’s expenses scandal was a story that rocked English politics by actually making
English people care about politics.
Basically English MP’s had expense forms that they could fill in and send off to cover
any costs they incurred while serving the country.
Many MP’s took this to mean “free money” and promptly sent off for anything and everything
they couldn’t be bother paying for.
Some MP’s bought second homes, some bought plasma screen TVs and others bough moats and
houses for their ducks.
Then you had the politicians who really took the piss.
Like Frank Cook who successfully claimed back 5 pounds he’d donated to charity, along
with another 130 thousand pounds worth of stuff.
He later apologised for his mistake, because obviously filling in a form and signing it
is something we all do by accident from time to time.
3.
The Comptroller who stole millions, on top of a 80 thousand dollar paycheck.
We can’t let England have all the glory though, over here in America we really know
how to milk the system.
We have people like Rita Crundwell who, on top of being paid 80 thousand dollars a year,
decided she just needed to embezzle millions upon millions of the tax payers dollars to
get by, because how do you expect someone to live on a measly 80 thousand dollars a
year?
We don’t know about you guys but we don’t know how anyone could live without a 2.1 million
dollar motorhome on top of their own, already giant house.
We don’t even think you can call living in a giant house living if we’re honest.
2.
The millionaire who stole a veteran’s credit card, to buy pizza.
What makes this entry sad isn’t that a millionaire stole from a Navy vet who’d just finished
buying presents for his 9 year old son’s birthday.
It’s how fast said millionaire took that chance.
When Harrun Majeed lost his credit cards he called his credit card company and explained
his situation, only to be told that no less than 8 minutes after he’d lost them, someone
had already found them and used them to buy 40 dollars worth of pizza.
When cops caught up to the thief they not only found out that he was a millionaire,
but that he had 250 dollars in cash in his back pocket.
When asked if he needed money, Dr. Richard Ludwig responded flippantly and asserted that
he was a millionaire.
When asked why he decided to steal the cards like a butthole instead of returning them
or handing them into the police, he responded with “I picked up the card, what was I supposed
to do with it?”
Oh, we don’t know Ludwig, how about next time you decide to not be a total wang?
1.
The millionaire who became a Lego baron.
Though the thought of people with more than most stealing things they don’t need is
one we find rather infuriating, this next story is too hilarious to be mad at the guy
it’s about.
Thomas Langenbach, a wealthy tech worker created the persona of Tomsbrickyard which over several
months became one of the foremost sellers of Lego on Ebay.
Tomsbrickyard, prior to Langenbach’s arrest, had actually had an almost perfect 99.9% approval
rating.
So where does the theft come into this?
Well, Langenbach found that if he printed out barcodes he found online and then stuck
them onto toys he found in Target, he could buy them for a heavily discounted price and
sell them on for a profit.
So he did just that, with thousands of toys.
Literally thousands, when the police finally cottoned on and raided his home they said
it looked like “Lego land” and commented that his urge to sell the tiny bricks must
have been the result of some sort of compulsion.
So yeah, rich people, for some reason, do seem compelled to steal things they could
easily afford, however, every now and again they’ll do so in such an awesome way you
really have to admire
them for it.