Fools rush in where others fear to tread
EVEN thieves can occasionally ascend to spectacular levels of incompetence.
When six men were about to rob an e-cigarette shop in broad daylight in Belgium on Wednesday, the owner immediately realised they were a couple of papadoms short of a curry so he decided to try his luck.
Rather than fork out the cash on the spot, he asked them to come back at the end of the
� day and promised them as much as 3,000 (RM14,275) if they did.
According to an incredulous report by the British Broadcasting Corp, the men threatened him but he stayed cool and convinced them that they could return for greater returns.
Raoul, the leader of the Simple Six as they were known among the Belgian underground, finally gave in to the allure of more money.
Alas, poor Raoul! He had forgotten Honest Abe’s First Principle which goes roughly as follows: it is wise to remember that you are one of those who can be fooled some of the time.
In short, they were as stupid as they looked and made you wonder how a fool and his money got together in the first place.
Back to the slow-witted sextet. After Raoul had led the foolish five out of there, the proprietor called the police who didn’t think for a minute that the mindless miscreants would return. But by 5.30pm, the by-now increasingly excited owner spotted one of the men lurking about the entrance looking expectant.
He was told it wasn’t yet time to lurk so could he come back in an hour so that said robbery could take place under the agreed terms and conditions?
Please?
The obliging outlaws came back exactly an hour later, just in time for the police behind the shop to arrest them. Five men were arrested – one was a minor which just went to show that age wasn’t any barrier to natural stupidity.
The shop owner told the Beeb: “They’re being called the worst robbers in Belgium.”
The remark cut poor Raoul to the quick. The serial offender felt seriously offended for he had tried to model his life along the highest standards of any respectable robber who took pride in not paying any taxes to the government.
He’d had a hard life, living from hand to mouth as it was even difficult to say what his father did: Raoul Senior sold seashells by the seashore.
He felt that he’d planned his robberies meticulously with an eye always peeled towards the type of risk management worthy of a Public Bank.
Example: his first daring feat of derring-do was a heist at the local distillery. When asked if it was dangerous, he answered with the finicky care of an accountant that it was “less whiskey than robbing a bank.”
Acts like Raoul’s may not epitomise the guiding tenets of a well-planned robbery but they do underscore the bigger picture of what this country went through in the last nine years.
Foreign commentators have often repeated one question with incredulity: what made them think that they could actually get away with it?
Well, the simple truth is that they did and for at least five years more than anybody should have.
Makes you wonder who were the real fools.