Netflix
- Police in Italy arrested a man who said he studied the Netflix series Lupin before trying to pull off a robbery
- The thief stole around $25 from a church in Milan before turning himself in
- Read more crimes stories here
Last month, Netflix provided us with a fairly rare look at the internal numbers concerning its most popular original programming. That data was released before Squid Game became a breakout hit that seems poised to skyrocket to the top of the list of its most-watched television shows, as the South Korean sensation is set to join a couple of other foreign offerings that had previously proved subtitles and language barriers aren’t a huge hindrance for viewers who really just want to be entertained.
One of those predecessors was the French series Lupin, which follows the fascinating saga of master criminal Assane Diop and the series of complex heists he pulls off thanks to the tips and tricks he learned by studying the tales of Arsène Lupin, the “gentleman thief” who was introduced to readers by Maurice Leblanc at the start of the 20th century.
Leblanc’s works had previously served as the basis for a number of adaptations—including a Japanese manga that was turned into a hit anime series—and Lupin managed to become the second most popular original show in the Netflix catalog by drawing inspiration from the more than 60 books where the author detailed the daring capers the thief pulled off.
According to The Guardian, an enterprising criminal in Italy recently decided to pull some inspiration from the Netflix series by watching it to pick up some tricks and tips of his own before attempting to rob a chapel in Milan. Over the weekend, he donned an outfit inspired by the protagonist and waited for the church’s bells to start ringing to cover up the sound of him smashing into the glass door of the oratory that was home to a whopping score of €21 (around $24) plus a bottle of orange soda.
We know all of these details because the unidentified thief in question was arrested by police after seeking medical attention for the injuries he suffered after pulling a Ryan Gosling in The Nice Guys while breaking into the church.
The man originally told officers he’d been robbed before coming clean, which may have had something to do with the fact they were aware he’d previously staged a robbery in the same chapel three years earlier.
Good job, good effort.