One of the puzzles of the life of crime is that it often takes more effort than getting and holding a real job. This came to my mind when I read this story from Las Vegas yesterday about criminals finding a way to utilize the credit cards they steal.
Obviously, the decline of cash has limited what criminals can do with ill-gotten gains in many cases. The victims of theft and fraud can cancel their credit and debit cards relatively quickly, so if you’ve gotten hold of a card by theft or robbery, there’s an urgent need to “use it or lose it.” So what’s a crook to do?
Apparently, just head to the nearest gas station and fill up whatever containers you have on hand.
As odd as it might seem, criminals are using stolen cards to buy gasoline and then put it into storage tanks in their own backyards or perhaps selling it to other unauthorized dealers. In this case in Las Vegas, presumably stolen gas was connected to an elaborate home-cooked setup with a long hose allowing people to fill up curbside if necessary.
I had previously heard of people using laundry detergent in a similar fashion. But this takes the danger, unpleasantness, and hassle of criminal activity and money-laundering to new levels.
Now your ability to benefit from crime might depend on your willingness either to house a dangerous, bad-smelling, illicit gas station in your own yard or else to drive around town and resell stolen gasoline in order to get your cash — and presumably your fix.
This cannot possibly be worth the risk. But even assuming you’re willing to take such a risk, is it really worth it to when unemployment is 3.5%? If you have to go to all that trouble to make crime pay, then … well, it really doesn’t, does it?
The only reason to go to such lengths to avoid doing an honest job is that you can’t hold one down due to a drug habit. I hate to sound utopian, or like some kind of early 20th-century progressive, but some very large share of our country’s remaining crime problem is probably just a treatable drug problem.
