New Zealand Cops Credit Facebook With Arrest

from the dude-mcgruff-just-added-me dept

Thu, Jan 15th 2009 1:16am — Carlo Longino

Police in New Zealand have arrested a would-be thief after putting CCTV photos of him up on Facebook. The criminal genius tried to crack open a pub's safe, but after an hour in a small, enclosed space, he got hot and removed his ski mask -- then later helpfully looked directly at the CCTV camera. Cops in the town of Queenstown put the image up on their two-month-old Facebook page, and a day later, he was identified. Media worldwide have picked up the story, but really, it's nothing more than some smarts on the part of the police to go where people are. In times gone by, getting images like this in the local paper, or on the Crimestoppers segment of the local TV news were about the best way to try and get witnesses or identify criminals. Facebook and other social-networking sites now offer huge audiences (or potential witness pools), particularly among young people, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise to see cops set up shop there.

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Filed Under: arrests, new zealand, wanted
Companies: facebook

4 Comments

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myky, 15 Jan 2009 @ 2:31am

Cops + Facebook
Cops in the US have been using You Tube for some time now.
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Alpha Computer, 15 Jan 2009 @ 4:27am

It Was Only A Matter Of Time
Technology is moving fast and it is allowing us to do more things. It is no surprise that the police are using this technology. It only makes sense. It's called getting out to where the people are. Instead of walking the beat, they are now surfing the beat.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jan 2009 @ 5:59am

The internet is the new post office. The past everyone seemed to visit the post office so posting 'wanted' posters at the post office was the best way to get the word out. In the new digital times we have facebook, youtube, etc to replace the brick and mortar post offices.
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- Anonymous Coward, 15 Jan 2009 @ 6:23am
  
  Re:
  Pretty much. It's better in almost every way, with the one exception being you probably wont' ever know if someone read your mail that wasn't supposed to.
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