Twins commit perfect heist?
DNA evidence from a multimillion-euro jewelry heist in Berlin leads to twins with a criminal record, but since the evidence could point to either one, German law says that neither can be convicted:
German law stipulates that each criminal must be individually proven guilty. The problem in the case of the O. brothers is that their twin DNA is so similar that neither can be exclusively linked to the evidence using current methods of DNA analysis. So even though both have criminal records and may have committed the heist together, Hassan and Abbas O. have been set free.(via Kottke)Both brothers have stolidly refused to comment ever since their arrests on February 11. Since no further evidence has become available, police cannot detain them.
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I heard Hassan slept with his brother's wife.
Wasn't this the plot to an episode of Columbo?
Ah - just one more thing, Mr O....
Sounds like this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/4559065/Identical-twin-escapes-hanging-in-Malaysia-after-judge-fails-to-tell-brothers-apart.html
It's not quite perfect. They still have to move the jewelry. It's not that easy to move multimillions in jewels, especially since they'll clearly be under a LOT of investigation for this. They may have been able to get away with stealing the jewels but as soon as one of them tries to reap the rewards in any traceable way it's curtains for them.
Unless their goal was merely to deny the possession of some jewels to their owners, not quite completely perfect.
getting back to establishing a clean, false identity to hold in reserve for one's children; how about a "twin"? Not as good as a total synthetic, but better than nothing?
I can't wait until my clone is done.
There are segments of DNA that differ in twins, but it would cost a lot of money to track down that .
The sections are called Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism - They are non-expressed repetitive segments of DNA..
Oh, give me a clone
Of my own flesh and bone
With its Y-chromosome changed to X
And when it is grown
Then my own little clone
Will be of the opposite sex.
(Chorus)
Clone, clone of my own,
With your Y-Chromosome changed to X
And when I'm alone
With my own little clone
We will both think of nothing but sex.
But which one is the evil twin?
If only one of them always told the truth, and one of them always lied.
Then Doctor Who could work out which one it was. "If I ask your brother a question, will he tell the truth?"
In fact, if only Doctor Who was the Judge, then the Court would be awesome.
But if one twin leaves earth on a rocket going 1/4 the speed of light . . .
It just goes to show you can't be too careful.
Justin Casey
Somewhere in here, there's a joke about how the OctoMom needs to move to Germany.
@#9: Obviously, the one with the goatee.
Granted, it's just occurred to me now that the eight aren't actually identical--but some things must be sacrificed in the name of Comedy.
and the jewelers insurance companies principal, who may not be as honest, can put a hit on both of them and get double the satisfaction for a fraction of the price... not that anyone in that position would do anything like that ever...
If they planned this whole thing with that loophole in mind, I'd just give them the jewels for having the smarts to plan it out and the balls to pull it off.
I'm betting this becomes a CSI and Law and Order plot. Oh and that NCIS show, but it will be twin sailors and that Missing show, Anthony Lapaglia will be chasing down the case of the missing twin when he stumbles on a bank robbery. Or a Cold Case involving an old robbery suddenly complicated by the appearance of a twin. Could be an SVU where the twin is the....wait wow TV has really gotten boring, hasn't it?
Don't have a twin? Don't worry, sometimes looking like a hippie will do.
It's 1972 and three German radicals are on trial for various acts of sabotage. Two of them, Baumann and Weisbecker, are expected to be released on parole. The third one, von Rauch, could be sentenced to at least ten years in jail.
Weisbecker and von Rauch both have long hair and beards. They actually look nothing like each other, but the policemen and lawyers aren't used to seeing much past the facial hair and clothes and overall hippieness.
Before reentering the courtroom, von Rauch gives his eyeglasses to Weisbecker. When Weisbecker and Baumann are given parole, it's actually von Rauch and Baumann who jump up, hug, cheer - and promptly get out and disappear.
And when the time comes to sentence von Rauch and lead him away to jail, all they have is Weisbecker - a man they just released on parole.
Couldn't the judge find *one* of the pair guilty and let *order* them to decide which one did it? If they still refuse then you keep them both locked up for *contempt of court*.
@20 Nope.
Firstly, no one can be forced to testify against themselves. I believe that's also true for the US, I think.
Furthermore, close relatives of the accused can refuse to testify also.
If only he left fingerprints...
It's not the "perfect heist" it's merely a very, very good one. There's nothing stopping fingerprint evidence or, shock horror, being caught trying to sell the loot narrowing things right down.
As it stands there's "not enough evidence to secure a conviction" and that's a different barrel of fish. It's like having just one grubby CCTV picture of a thief, you're not going to be sure exactly who that is.
#10
"If only one of them always told the truth, and one of them always lied."
That makes me think of something recently on TV-- I think a Simpsons episode, but I'm not sure. There were 3 doors, and 3 guards-- the person was told that one guard always lies, one guard always tells the truth, and one guard always stabs people who ask silly questions... (results were not shown)
Both brothers have stolidly refused to comment ever since their arrests on February 11.
It's a real-life example of the (literal) Prisoner's Dilemma!
Law 'n Order already did it-- the twins were kids, and they committed the "perfect" murder. Oh, yeah there was the small difference in that the murder victim had been the Doc that gave one of them a sex change to prove a pet nature vs nurture theory of his, but other than that the similarity is. . . well the perps were unprosecutable. That was the same.
I know it's by Asimov... but MADSCI just made my day.
Crazy! My twins are three, and haven't committed any crimes as of yet (that I'm aware of). They are hot on news and politics, though:
I don't know anything about German law, but in the US the insurance co. could sue the twins and the judge could jail the pair for civil contempt indefinitely until one of them tells where the loot is.
Don't they have "conspiracy to commit [crime]" (dunno the proper legal jargon for this) laws exactly for such cases?
@29 In Germany, there will be no civil case, since the brothers aren't guilty of anything.
@30 What conspiracy? It's not that they planned this heist right at the first cell devision.
#30. Even if there is a conspiracy law, there's the matter of proving a conspiracy took place.
@ #24
I believe you are referencing xkcd #246 found here: http://www.xkcd.com/246/
Never before have been so annoyed that my twin is fraternal...
Ihabime @#18:
Perhaps you are anticipating this CSI: Miami episode from 2007. IIRC, the investigators bumped into this same problem, because the DNA wasn't conclusive. But fortunately, ... aw, I don't want to spoil the ending.
Can't they both be convicted of obstruction of justice, since there's a 100% likelihood that both of them are guilty of at least that?
Well, in this case, with both of them refusing to comment they could be obstructing justice. But what if both of them told the same alibi story?
Then theoretically one of them could be innocent.
Imagine if you were the good twin that just went to the movies that night. How would you prove that YOU didn't commit the robbery?
Will it get to the point where, if one of them walks into a bank, they'll just hand over the money because they know it'll be impossible to prosecute them?
They should find some easy way to launder the money between each other.
@37 I get an alibi. I have yet to see the twin that can really fool his brother's wife/girlfriend/mates.
@38 Well, one could shoot them while in the bank. The one lying dead or bleeding on the floor is guilty. Easy and perfectly legal.
See the Graham Greene story from 1939 'The Case for the Defence'--earliest version of this scenario that I've seen.
They're both actually keeping silent to protect their unknown triplet brother.
everyone is forgetting that jewellry can be changed and the value of Gold and precious metals keeps climbing, so even if they get rid of it bit by bit over time and deposit money in installments, it could be considered earnings and small amounts are not declared to police, if you melt the metals and sell by weight and stones to overseas buyers then there is no problem. As well as it climbing in value due to them waiting and the price of precious(soon to be rare) metals forever going up... as far as convicting them for any of the theories that have been mentioned it is not possible because of the fact that niether of them can be told apart, then there is the double jeopardy issue,hence the reason the judge threw out the case!!