Man Nabbed For Selling His Own Stolen Car Online
from the not-so-smart dept
Ah, the dumb criminals. In Germany, a man reported his car as stolen, and then proceeded to start auctioning off pieces of the same car online. He sold off the engine – but when he couldn’t remove it from the car himself, decided to just throw in the rest of the car as well (what a deal!). The police say that they were going to stop him anyway for towing a car illegally. Now, here’s the great part: the two men (the seller and the buyer) are now being held for receiving stolen goods. Is it still “receiving stolen goods” if the goods have only been reported stolen – but weren’t actually stolen?
Comments on “Man Nabbed For Selling His Own Stolen Car Online”
classic pretzel logic from Mike!
“Is it still “receiving stolen goods” if the goods have only been reported stolen – but weren’t actually stolen?”
I’m having a hard time actually believing that you asked this question. Of course it’s receiving stolen goods — the fact that he himself stole it does not change this fact. However, given Mike’s constant support for the legions of music and software thieves — as evidenced on several occasions in his long-winded editorials on this site — it’s not surprising that he wouldn’t see what this German guy did as illegal!
Re: classic pretzel logic from Mike!
Well, I grant them “fraud”. He was definitely committing fraud. So, I do see it as very much illegal – which is why I posted the story in the first place. I’m just not sure that it’s “receiving stolen goods”.
Also, I’m not sure how your comparison to file sharing relates to this story at all… You can mischaracterize my argument all you want, but all it does is show how much you don’t understand what we’re discussing here.
I do not support “music and software theives”. I think any theivery is bad. I just question whether or not file sharing really is theivery – and I think it’s a question that is very much open for debate. More to the point – my argument has nothing to do with those who participate in file sharing, but the companies who are yelling about “piracy” and “thievery” and blaming their customers. There’s a real business model opportunity for them, and they’ve missed it.
But, you knew that already. You just like to troll.. don’t you?
Re: Re: classic pretzel logic from Mike!
Just to be anal-retentive, music piracy is not “thievery” or “stealing”, it’s copyright violation.
The RIAA and MPAA are twisting words to make it sound worse and make it sound like they showed up for work one day and the warehouse was empty – “Oh no, someone stole all our stuff!”. In reality, it’s like someone broke in and copied all their documents and snuck back out. It’s still illegal, just an entirely different crime.
Re: Re: attempted receipt of stolen goods
Your concern is correct. He can’t steal the goods from himself.
So, the crime for the buyer (which requires knowledge as an element) would be attempted receipt of stolen property. This is the crime with which people are charged in sting operations of this type, where the goods aren’t actually stolen. In most US jurisdictions, the penalties for attempt are almost the same as those for the completed crime (flavors of homicide being a notable exception).