The Not So Perfect Crime

June 20th, 2006 | by: WC Bob |

There are stupid criminals and then there are really stupid criminals. A thief in Munich falls into the latter category. After stealing a woman’s handbag which contained a ticket to the Brazil and Australia match, the man showed up at the game only to find a surprise waiting for him.

“The audacious thief found the ticket and sat down in her place,” Munich police said in a statement. “However, the victim’s husband then sat next to him in the stadium and alerted the police, who arrested the man.”

The news isn’t as good for a group of school kids from Britain who received bogus tickets as part of a tour package. About 450 kids were denied access to the match between Portugal and Iran in Frankfurt. It wasn’t the greatest match, but you have to feel bad for the kids.

One person you can’t feel bad for is Ismail Bhamjee, the former President of the Botswana Football Association. Bhamjee was busted after for selling 12 tickets for three times their face value.

The real crime is not that he touted the tickets, but that he got caught. He is likely to become the first man forced to resign from Fifa’s executive committee in its 102-year history.

102 years and there has never been a crime that warranted expulsion from FIFA? If you believe that, I have a ticket to the Brazil and Australia match to sell you.

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Luis

Well, we all know world cup fever is hard to cure.
diego

Weren’t the tickets supposed to be personalized????
I thought people were being asked to show a photo ID at the gates.
Dave Hamilton

The tickets are supposedly “personalized” with a chip, but as you can imagine, they can only do a “Stichprobe,” or random check, at the gates. From what I know and have seen, virtually nobody is being checked. It could be interesting before it is all over. Of course nobody wants to wait in line while every person gets checked; one would never get it.
Shedrak

Why are we talking about Mr. Bhamjee like he did something so wrong. He was conned into selling these tickets to what he thought was a few unfortunate fans. he made an error in judgement. So many people have done much worse in FIFA. Have you guys not seen the program on BBC about millions going missing. They used him and he was set up.