Theft

A small wooden cabinet went up for auction on EBay. Inside were two locks of hair, one granite slab, one dried rosebud, one goblet, two wheat pennies, one candlestick and, allegedly, one "dibbuk," a kind of spirit popular in Yiddish folklore. The seller, a Missouri college student named Iosif Nietzke, described the container as a "haunted Jewish wine cabinet box" that had plagued several owners with rotten luck and a spate of bizarre paranormal stunts.

It's one of the most buzzed about questions in the video game world: When will Grand Theft Auto V hit stores? The hugely anticipated sequel to one of video gaming's best-selling franchises was first announced by developer Rockstar Games last November. Fans know that it will be another huge open-world game and that it will take place in a thinly veiled version of Los Angeles, much like 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV took place in a virtual replica of New York City.

Thieves seem to be embarking on an anti-grime spree, some media outlets are reporting, saying thousands of dollars in Tide detergent is being swiped from shelves across the country. One Minnesota man stole about $25,000 worth of the liquid laundry detergent from a West St. Paul Wal-Mart over 15 months, authorities there say. Some stores, including a CVS in Prince George's County, Md., have taken to wrapping anti-theft devices around the handles of the orange bottles. Several publications have described the thefts as a widespread crime wave, even calling the detergent "liquid gold," but law enforcement authorities and some retail operators aren't so sure.

The reality TV show "Bait Car" is supposed to catch car thieves in the act. Undercover cops park a rigged car on the side of the road, conspicuously leaving the keys inside, while a television crew waits nearby for an unsuspecting passerby to take the bait and steal the car. But in one recent sting filmed in cooperation with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the lead detective on the case ended up getting busted instead....

Although Calendar isn't the best forum to debate capitalism, Russell Dvonch's March 18 letter defending greed demands a response. The reason capitalism is theft has to do with "surplus value"--the difference between the selling price and the cost of equipment, materials, marketing and labor. All down the line, "profit" is really the result of unpaid labor that creates additional goods without commensurate additional cost. The capitalist claims this profit by virtue of his capital alone, which in most cases is the result of economic, racial and social inheritance, not hard work.

Timothy Potts, who was named director of the Getty Museum in February and who will assume the post in September, no doubt had a busy weekend. As was reported in the British media, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, where Potts currently serves as director, is reeling from a major theft of ancient Chinese artifacts. The Telegraph reported that 18 items including a 14th century Ming jade cup were stolen around Friday evening. The missing pieces also include a jade-carved buffalo from the 16th century, a carved horse from the 17th century and a green and brown jade carved elephant.

Richard L. Weisman, the noted art collector who made news recently when he decided to forgo a multimillion-dollar insurance policy for stolen art, had some critical words for the LAPD detectives investigating his case. "Maybe if they would do their job . . . and spent some time looking for the art instead of being accusatory of the person who had it stolen, they might actually find it," Weisman said in an interview last weekend. The art world was set abuzz in early September with word that a series of original works by Andy Warhol had been stolen from the walls of Weisman's home on Los Angeles' Westside.

Police are investigating the theft of a 5-foot-tall bronze statue of Sacagawea and her baby, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, from Ft. Clatsop. Clatsop County Sheriff's Sgt. Kristen Hanthorn said the statue probably was stolen for its scrap metal value.

The best of luck to all those unfortunate people whose Social Security checks were recently stolen from an Orange County mail carrier's car. I have been working with my aunt and uncle, whose checks were taken from a mail carrier's car in Gardena in September, 1986. Both checks were cashed. After several trips to the Social Security office, many, many phone calls and letters to the county supervisor and the congressman in that area, my aunt finally received a duplicate check--10 months after the theft.

An accountant with the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games has been charged with embezzling thousands of dollars, which he allegedly used to buy a Mercedes-Benz and a certificate of deposit. Police said Stevie Council of Atlanta was charged with one count of theft by taking. A police report said he allegedly wrote about $60,000 in ACOG checks and deposited them in a bogus bank account, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said in Thursday's editions.

Jet Tanner was sound asleep in his Irvine home on a March night when he was awakened by the sound of crashing glass. He ran to the front of the house just as the thieves were pulling away. They left a computer and a flat-screen television. In fact, the only thing they took was his 14-year-old daughter Millie's cyclocross team bicycle, worth more than $5,000 and custom made for her competitive racing. "She was crying. She was devastated," Tanner recalled. "She couldn't believe they took her bicycle and equipment and left everything else.

WASHINGTON - Concerned about possible cyber spying, U.S. national security officials are debating whether to take the unprecedented step of recommending that a Chinese government-owned mobile phone giant be denied a license to offer international service to American customers. China Mobile, the world's largest mobile provider, applied in October for a license from the Federal Communications Commission to provide service between China and the United States and to build facilities on American soil.

Troubled insurance giant American International Group Inc. filed a lawsuit against the former head of its aircraft leasing business, Steven Udvar-Hazy, contending the Los Angeles billionaire stole company secrets, wooed away customers and pilfered business deals after he started a competing firm in 2010. The New York insurance company and its Century City unit, International Lease Finance Corp., or ILFC, filed suit Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The 33-page complaint listed the defendants as Udvar-Hazy, his current company, Air Lease Corp., and 30 employees who left ILFC to work with him. AIG asserted in the lawsuit that the defendants collectively connected 16 flash drives to ILFC computers and downloaded nearly 13,000 ILFC files, which included price data concerning the value of aircraft fleets, past contracts, letters of intent and statements of work.

Timothy Potts, who was named director of the Getty Museum in February and who will assume the post in September, no doubt had a busy weekend. As was reported in the British media, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, where Potts currently serves as director, is reeling from a major theft of ancient Chinese artifacts. The Telegraph reported that 18 items including a 14th century Ming jade cup were stolen around Friday evening. The missing pieces also include a jade-carved buffalo from the 16th century, a carved horse from the 17th century and a green and brown jade carved elephant.

Police in downtown Los Angeles have seen cellphone thefts soar as smartphones like the iPhone become easily turned into pay-as-you-go phones. In the first quarter of this year, thefts of cellphones increased 32% in the downtown area. In the one-mile-square area of skid row, the increase is even more pronounced, said Los Angeles Police Lt. Paul Vernon. Individuals reported 54 cellphones taken in crimes within skid row in the first three months of 2012, compared with 115 during all of 2011.

WASHINGTON - The nation's largest wireless carriers are banding together with regulators and law enforcement officials to launch an effort to make stolen cellphones and other mobile devices as useless as an empty wallet. The goal is to cut down on increasing thefts of smartphones by making them less appealing to criminals. AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless,T-Mobile USA andSprint Nextel Corp. said Tuesday they will create a central database to track stolen devices and prevent them from being reactivated.

Like Will Rogers, all I know is what I read in the papers. Letters in the Oct. 31 Times that seemed to justify the shooting of Brandon Ketsdever by Pete Solomona saddened me. They made me wonder how much value to place on property, no matter how minuscule. Both of the individuals involved have been identified as decent human beings. No one justifies theft, but there are gradations of seriousness of thefts. In a time when we debate imposing the death penalty, I think that even proponents would want it reserved for heinous crimes such as rape and murder.

An Altadena house-mover has been charged with felony grand theft in connection with the transport of a house from Irwindale to Altadena in September, Irwindale Police said this week. Alfred Hampton, who was arrested Friday and freed on his own recognizance, had told police that he thought he owned the blue-and-white stucco home, which was sitting on a lot at Arrow Highway and Live Oak Avenue in Irwindale, when he moved it 14 miles to Altadena.

The hacking of a credit card processing company last week, with more than a million people's card numbers potentially stolen by identity thieves, highlights yet again how little privacy we enjoy in the digital age. It also highlights — yet again — how hard it can be to find out details of a security breach. William LeGro of Silver Lake is typical of a lot of people who frequently shop online. He knows that he usually has to run a gantlet of hackers and scammers to get what he wants.

SACRAMENTO AND WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Kinde Durkee, once a go-to campaign treasurer for Democrats in California, pleaded guilty Friday to five counts of mail fraud after an FBI investigation found she stole more than $7 million in political funds from at least 50 clients, including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. U.S. Atty. Benjamin B. Wagner said the theft appears to be the largest embezzlement scheme ever by a campaign treasurer. He estimated that Durkee may have pilfered as much as $10 million in the last 11 years, using the funds for such routine expenses as meeting her business payroll and buying Baskin-Robbins ice cream.