In law enforcement, a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person attempting to commit a crime. A typical sting will have an undercover law enforcement officer, detective, or co-operative member of the public play a role as criminal partner or potential victim and go along with a suspect's actions to gather evidence of the suspect's wrongdoing. Mass media journalists occasionally resort to sting operations to record video and broadcast to expose criminal activity.
Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, although making unfounded threats in order to obtain an unfair business advantage is also a form of extortion.
Bruno Richard Hauptmann was a German-born carpenter who was convicted of the abduction and murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the 20-month-old son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The Lindbergh kidnapping became known as "The Crime of the Century". Both Hauptmann and his wife, Anna Hauptmann, proclaimed his innocence to his death, when he was executed in 1936 by electric chair at the Trenton State Prison. Anna later sued the State of New Jersey, various former police officers, the Hearst newspapers that had published pre-trial articles insisting on Hauptmann's guilt, and former prosecutor David T. Wilentz.
On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of colonel Charles Lindbergh and his wife, aviatrix and author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was murdered after being abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs' home, Highfields, in East Amwell, New Jersey, United States. On May 12, the child's corpse was discovered by a truck driver by the side of a nearby road.
Ransom is a 1996 American action thriller film directed by Ron Howard from a screenplay by Richard Price and Alexander Ignon. The film stars Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise, Delroy Lindo, Lili Taylor, Brawley Nolte, Liev Schreiber, Donnie Wahlberg and Evan Handler. Gibson was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. The film was the 5th highest-grossing film of 1996 in the United States. The original story came from a 1954 episode of The United States Steel Hour titled "Fearful Decision". In 1956, it was adapted by Cyril Hume and Richard Maibaum into the feature film, Ransom!, starring Glenn Ford, Donna Reed, and Leslie Nielsen.
Arno Funke, alias Dagobert, is a reformed German extortionist, now an author.
Edgar Eugene Pearce is a British extortionist and bomber who was convicted of the Mardi Gra bombings, a three-year blackmail and terror campaign in the London area between December 1994 and April 1998.
The Glico Morinaga case, also known by its official designation Metropolitan Designated Case 114, was a famous extortion case from 1984 to 1985 in Japan, primarily directed at the Japanese industrial confectioneries Ezaki Glico and Morinaga, and currently remains unsolved. The entire case spanned 17 months from the initial kidnapping of the president of Glico to the last known communication from the prime suspect, a person or group known only as "The Monster with 21 Faces".
The Devil's Teardrop is a novel published in 1999, written by author Jeffery Deaver. It, like other books of Deaver's, is a suspense-crime novel and contains several plot twists. Deaver, whose suspense fiction has been hailed as "a thrill ride between covers" by the Los Angeles Times, imagines a chilling scenario: a killer who is set to strike on the last night of this millennium – and unleash a devastation plot of murder and mayhem. The devil's teardrop is also a nickname for obsidian.
Michael Benneman Sams is an English kidnapper, extortionist and murderer. He kidnapped Julie Dart in July 1991 and later murdered her following her attempted escape. He subsequently kidnapped Stephanie Slater in January 1992, eventually releasing her after payment of a ransom. Slater was also raped during her imprisonment by Sams.
Edward Aloysius Cudahy Jr. ; August 22, 1885 – January 8, 1966), also known as Eddie Cudahy, was kidnapped on December 18, 1900 in Omaha, Nebraska. Edward Cudahy Sr. was the wealthy owner of the Cudahy Packing Company, which helped build the Omaha Stockyards through the 1950s. Cudahy Sr. paid the ransom for the return of his son and made the kidnapper, Pat Crowe, a popular author, lecturer and actor for a brief period. The Cudahy case is said to have influenced many succeeding kidnappings, including those of the Lindbergh baby, Bobby Greenlease, and Marion Parker.
The Millennium Dome raid was an attempted robbery of the Millennium Dome's diamond exhibition in Greenwich, South East London occurring on 7 November 2000. A local gang planned to ram-raid the De Beers diamond exhibition, which was held in the riverside Dome. The gang had then planned to escape via the Thames in a speedboat.
The Tesco bomb campaign was an attempted extortion against British supermarket chain Tesco which started in Bournemouth, England, in August 2000 and led to one of the largest and most secretive operations ever undertaken by Dorset Police. During the campaign, a blackmailer identified by the pseudonym "Sally" sent letters to Tesco stores threatening to harm customers if his demands—for Clubcards, modified so that the holder could withdraw cash from ATMs—were not met.
The Chickens and the Bulls refers to an extortion ring that preyed on prominent, closeted, gay men in the 1960s. Corrupt police officers and police impersonators known as 'Bulls', used young often underage boys called 'chickens' to blackmail wealthy or important closeted men across the country. Over nearly a decade the ring victimized thousands, including "a navy admiral, two generals, a U.S. congressman, a prominent surgeon, an Ivy League professor, a prep school headmaster, and several well-known actors, singers, and television personalities" This went on until 1966 when Manhattan DA Frank Hogan announced that the ring had been broken up, after "at least 2 million dollars had been taken."
The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case is a 1976 American television film dramatization of the Lindbergh kidnapping, directed by Buzz Kulik and starring Cliff DeYoung, Anthony Hopkins, Martin Balsam, Joseph Cotten, and Walter Pidgeon. It first aired on the NBC network on February 26, 1976.
The Black Hand is an American silent film directed by Wallace McCutcheon. It is generally considered by motion-picture historians to be the earliest surviving gangster film.
The kidnapping of Ursula Herrmann was a notorious child kidnapping which occurred in Germany on 15 September 1981 in which a 10-year-old girl disappeared while riding a bicycle to her home. The child was subsequently found dead in a rectangular wooden box buried in woodland.
The Tesco blackmail plot was an extortion attempt against the British supermarket chain Tesco and which led to the largest blackmail investigation in the UK.
The 2007 Tesco blackmail campaign was an extortion attempt against the British supermarket chain Tesco.
Rodney Whitchelo was a British law enforcement officer and criminal convicted of blackmail and food contamination. He poisoned baby products as part of a plot to extort Heinz, causing a baby food scare in 1989. Whitchelo, who was dubbed the "consumer terrorist", committed his crimes while serving as a detective of the Scotland Yard.
