Explore notes from the casefile — unusual cases, historical crimes and the darker side of human behavior.
The article explains how custody escapes can exploit ordinary features of nearby public infrastructure and transitional spaces, rather than relying on dramatic breaches of secure facilities.
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In August 2005, thieves stole about 164 million reais from Brazil’s Banco Central by digging a tunnel into the vault instead of entering through the bank.
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Investigators helped identify Ted Kaczynski by comparing distinctive phrases and writing patterns in the Unabomber manifesto with his known writings, aided in part by concerns raised by his brother and sister-in-law.
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John Dillinger escaped from the Crown Point, Indiana jail on March 3, 1934 by bluffing guards into believing he had a gun, an episode that exposed major security failures and helped intensify the federal manhunt.
Read more →This article highlights how ordinary business and personal records can provide key evidence in theft investigations by establishing possession, timing, access, and transaction patterns.
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The Soham murders case used forensic pollen and plant traces from Ian Huntley’s car to help link it to the disposal site where Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were found.
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Saudi customs said it intercepted 178,274 Captagon pills hidden inside imported beehives.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers found nearly 18 pounds of alleged cocaine hidden inside four wheels of cheese during a vehicle inspection.
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The McDonald’s Monopoly promotion was rigged by Jerome Jacobson, a security insider who stole rare winning game pieces and routed them to accomplices who claimed major prizes.
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Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán escaped from Altiplano prison through a purpose-built underground tunnel built from his shower area to a house outside the prison compound.
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Al Capone was convicted in 1931 for federal income tax evasion, showing that investigators could use financial records and spending patterns to prove illegal income when violent-crime charges were harder to secure.
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A forged will can be exposed when forensic examiners determine the paper it was printed on was manufactured after the will’s stated date.
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A 1973 bank hostage crisis in Stockholm led to the coinage of the term “Stockholm syndrome” and remains a debated example of hostage behavior.
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Leatherslade Farm became a key piece of evidence in the Great Train Robbery investigation when police found fingerprints and other traces left by the gang after their hideout cleanup failed.
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The 2003 Antwerp Diamond Heist involved thieves breaching the Antwerp Diamond Center’s vault and escaping with an estimated $100 million in diamonds, gold, and jewels.
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This list explains how forensic investigators can recover usable DNA from unexpected or degraded materials, showing that evidence can survive in unusual substrates and still help link people to crimes.
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Anna Sorokin, known as Anna Delvey, used forged financial documents and false claims of wealth to obtain credit, services, and access from Manhattan hotels, clubs, and institutions, leading to her 2019 conviction.
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Los Angeles prosecutors said a mortuary employee and alleged accomplices tried to obtain about $1.2 million in life-insurance payouts by using false death certificates and an empty-casket funeral for people who were not actually dead.
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Wolfgang Beltracchi’s forgery scheme succeeded not just because of painted fakes, but because fabricated provenance, labels, and documents made the works seem historically authentic.
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John Drewe helped pass forged paintings as authentic by planting false provenance records in trusted museum archives.
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An SD card found on an Anchorage street led police to a homicide investigation and the arrest of Brian Steven Smith, who was charged in the killing of Kathleen Henry and later also linked by investigators to the death of Veronica Abouchuk.
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Microdots were tiny photographic images used in espionage to hide pages of text or photos inside ordinary-looking mail.
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Narco-submarines are low-profile semi-submersible vessels used by trafficking groups to move large drug shipments while reducing the chance of detection at sea.
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The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston still displays empty frames where 13 artworks were stolen in its unsolved 1990 art heist.
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Operation Trojan Shield was an FBI-run encrypted messaging platform designed to lure criminals into using it so investigators could read their messages and gather evidence.
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Authorities found about 55 grams of cocaine hidden inside a Styrofoam box of frozen fish during a cargo inspection.
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The CIA’s Operation Midnight Climax used covert brothel safehouses to secretly dose unwitting men with LSD while observing them for MKUltra-related research.
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The Lockerbie bombing investigation used fragments of a jacket and a recalled clothing sale in Malta to help trace the bomb suitcase back toward Libya.
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The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 by Vincenzo Peruggia, who kept it hidden for more than two years before it was recovered.
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In June 2009, four inmates escaped from St. Tammany Parish Jail after using hacksaw blades hidden inside a Bible to cut through their window bars.
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