The thing that some people don't understand about crime is that you have to put some thought into it. You can't just run around willy-nilly doing stupid idiot crimes and expect to get rich and famous and live a life of leisure outside the walls of a prison. You have to plan shit. You can't just, you know, steal $285,000 and hope that nobody notices.

It sure seems unlikely that David Petraeus, the married director of the C.I.A., would be seducing Taiwanese engineers on Skype in order to cash his, uh, paychecks from the NATO operation in Libya, doesn't it? But try telling that to Liu Shuzhen, who is pretty insistent that she and Petraeus are getting married, any day now.

As repayment for unemployment benefits he collected in 1964, retiree Dennis Ferguson is helping California close its "massive" deficit with a check made out to the state for $10,000. Just 2.5 million more old guys and they're all set!