The best way to learn how to do something is by studying people who’ve done it successfully. It turns out one of the best ways to avoid capture by police is (a) flee to another country and (b) live a flashy lifestyle (c) under your real name. Here are 8 real-life examples of world-class fugitives (running from the law should be recognized as an Olympic sport; these guys would all be gold medalists):
1. Fugitive: Craig Lynch. Wanted for: Escaping from custody after being arrested for burglary. Wanted by: Suffolk, England, police. Hideout: Facebook, where he regularly posted taunts and photos of himself flipping off the cops, posing bare-chested with a Thanksgiving turkey (to prove to his huge fan base that he was, in fact, not in jail), and this selfie:
(It’s a bit out of focus, but what the hey, selfies were still in the early stage of invention when this was taken.)
2. Fugitive: Ronnie Biggs. Wanted for: The Great Train Robbery. Wanted by: Every cop in the British Commonwealth. Hideouts: Various, starting with Melbourne, Australia, where he got a job at Channel 9 News, which soon ran a headline, “Ronnie Biggs reported to be hiding in Melbourne.” That was his cue to emigrate to Brazil, where he (a) attended a cocktail party aboard a Royal Navy ship, (b) cut some punk rock records, and (c) supported himself by regaling tourists with first-person accounts of the heist. Eventually, the Brits were onto him and sent a team of crack commandos to kidnap Biggs and haul his ass back to England, but unfortunately their ship broke down off Barbados, where the authorities weren’t sympathetic to explanations that they weren’t really kidnapping him. “In 2001, Biggs was finally arrested in just about the only way he was likely ever going to be …: by returning to the U.K. and surrendering, at the age of 69.” Released from jail on compassionate grounds, “despite being wholly unrepentant,” he presumably is living on their version of social security and national health insurance at taxpayers’ expense.
(Still flipping everybody off in his dotage.)
3. Fugitive: Jean Claude Lacote. Wanted for: Swindling investors and murdering one of them. Wanted by: Belgian authorities. Hideouts: Started with South Africa; present whereabouts unknown. Began his life on the run by hiding in Johannesburg disguised as the producer of a TV true-crime reality show, using his own name as an alias. Kept a low profile by hiding in a flashy mansion, surrounded by his wife and a fleet of Ferraris, and living a party life. When busted by local cops for violating carousing ordinances, he escaped by having two friends show up at the police station in fake police uniforms, with a fake arrest warrant printed on the back of an advertising flyer, who hauled him away in fake handcuffs. Hasn’t been seen since.
(Picture: Rare photo of Lacote in one of his disguises.)
4. Fugitive: Ex-CEO Kobi Alexander. Wanted for: Embezzling millions from the company he used to run. Wanted by: U.S. Department of Justice. Hideout: Namibia, where he bought a mansion and the right politicians, and established himself as a local philanthropist.
(Namibia not only doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S., it has no laws against smoking indoors, either, making it an ideal refuge for nicotine addicts.)
5. Fugitive: Kevin Poulsen. Wanted for: Hacking into the Pentagon’s and FBI’s computer systems. Wanted by: Guess. Hideout: A garage in Silicon Valley, in front of a computer keyboard, where he continued to hack the government (swiping, among other things, the FBI’s wiretaps of his phone), and also “won” two Porsches, a Hawaiian vacation, and $20,000 in local radio stations’ giveaway contests by hacking into the stations’ IT systems. When finally caught, he became famous as the first hacker charged with espionage (his storage locker trove included, among other things, the Air Force’s nuclear war plans), and copped a plea deal that got him a world-record (at the time) sentence for hacking. Now employed by Wired.com as a writer and editor.
(It helps to steal a fast car and the FBI’s file on you, if you need to make a getaway.)
6. Fugitive: John Joe Gray. Wanted for: Sovereign citizen bullshit, culminating with biting a cop who was trying to cite him for a traffic infraction; the original prototype for Cliven Bundy. Wanted by: Texas Rangers. Hideout: A 47-acre compound on the Trinity River near Trinidad, Texas, that the county sheriff has exhibited no inclination to shoot his way into for 15 years now and counting.
(His hideout isn’t hard to find; just look for the signs. Why doesn’t the Air Force bomb it? Entering on foot may not be a good idea, but an approach from 30,000 feet seems feasible. A few B-52 runs should enable deputies to safely take into custody what’s left of him.)
7. Fugitive: Colton Harris-Moore. Wanted for: Theft, burglary, and operating aircraft without a pilot’s license. Wanted by: Washington, Idaho, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Canada, Bahamas, the FBI, and Interpol. Hideouts: Good question. He seems to have lived in the woods a lot, but his basic strategy was to keep moving, usually in stolen conveyances. He started with bicycles at age 7, and progressively upgraded to cars, boats, and airplanes. If he hadn’t finally been apprehended by Bahamanian police who shot out a boat engine, he might have hijacked a Space Shuttle and headed for Mars.
(Make sure you cover your tracks so the cops can’t follow you.)
And, of course, there’s one more — the reigning king of uncaught fugitives from twisted justice:
8. Fugitive: Eric Snowden. Wanted for: Pissing off the CIA, FBI, and NSA by spilling the beans about the shit our lying, snooping government does to its own law-abiding citizens, and other breaches of peace and public order. Wanted by: Our NSA-coddling president and his minions. Hideout: “An undisclosed location kept secret for security reasons,” according to the fugitive’s Russian lawyer, but realistically probably a drab Soviet-era flat in Moscow — the only kind of housing they have there — with typical post-Soviet furnishings. His American girlfriend, a performer and acrobat (hmm … ) named Lindsay Mills, was last seen in the vicinity of Hawaii’s main airport some time ago; I suspect that if you can find her, you’ll probably find him. Snowden, in one of his many media interviews, once described himself as an “indoor cat,” presumably meaning he doesn’t go outside very much and never looks up when he does — because of, you know, the U.S. spy satellites hovering overhead meticulously scrutinizing every single one of the 143,975,923 faces in Russia (excluding the recently annexed taxing districts of Crimea and eastern Ukraine) trying to get a fix on his ass. I would guess our government has launched some extra satellites just to look for him. If they spotted him in Russia, what the CIA would do next is anybody’s guess.
(Smuggled photo of Eric Snowden and Lindsay Mills lounging in their typically furnished Moscow flat.)