Thieves around the world

Two 13-year-olds and a 14-year-old have been arrested on suspicion of a string of bank robberies in Canada.

Police in Vancouver arrested the three teenagers following the robberies

"Within the last month and a half we're looking at seven robberies all over the Lower Mainland,"

A former security firm manager said he stole almost £5m from the company he worked for because he had never been given a rise.

The 40-year-old man, named only as Ingo S, was found guilty of theft by a court in Munich, Germany, after being caught with the cash stuffed into 40 money bags in the boot of his car.

Speaking in court the man, who headed a branch of the unnamed security firm in Fuerstenfeldbruck near Munich, said he felt mistreated by the company.

"I successfully built up that branch and instead of being given a pay rise, all I got was a pat on the back," he said.

He has now been sentenced to four years and three months in prison by the County Court in Munich.
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Police in Romania say they have caught a thief who stole money from a priest's car while he was in a strip club.

The 43-year-old priest was allegedly spotted by the thief in a club called No Problem in Suceava town, reports Evenimentul Zilei newspaper.

Witnesses say he was being free with his money, hiring all of the dancers to perform for him and his friends.

Police say the thief found out which was the priest's car and broke into it, stealing £4,000 he found in a suitcase.

But officers managed to track him down and recover the money, after studying CCTV footage from the club's carpark.

Church authorities said they will start their own investigation into the priest's moral qualifications for his job
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German police are hunting a gang of Robin Hoods who steal food from exclusive restaurants and delis to give to the poor.

The anarchist thieves, who wear superhero costumes during their raids, have struck repeatedly in recent months in Hamburg, reports the Scotsman.

After they plundered Kobe beef fillets, champagne and smoked salmon from a gourmet store on exclusive Elbastrasse, they presented the cashier with a bouquet of flowers.

And they left a note saying: "Without the abilities of the superheroes to help them, it would be impossible for ordinary people to survive in the city of the millionaires."

In another recent swoop, the gang emptied a groaning buffet table in a top restaurant into sacks, while one of their number held up a sign saying: "The fat years are over".

In internet statements, the gang say their booty is distributed to the poorest of Germany's long-term unemployed.

They are also behind black market cinema tickets which they distribute free to the poor, and they have printed leaflets telling passengers how to dodge ticket inspectors on the city's underground and buses.

But police spokesman Bodo Franz said: "They get off feeling they are just like Robin Hood. There are about 30 in the group. But whatever their motives, they are thieves, plain and simple."

world bike rider

A cyclist travelled 335,500 miles on the same bike - only for it to be stolen as soon as he arrived in Britain.

German-born Heinz Stucke bought his bike in 1962 to embark on his endless voyage across the globe, says the BBC.

But it was stolen as he slept in his tent in Portsmouth just hours after getting off a ferry - happily it turned up the next day.

Mr Stucke, 66, said he was "quite happy" after being informed by officers his bicycle had been discovered abandoned in a local park.

Mr Stucke, who was en route to Greenland, has travelled to 165 countries and is registered as the Most Travelled Man in History in the Guinness Book of Records.

He survived being stung twice by a swarm of bees in Mozambique in 1995 and a nasty bout of dysentery while in Indonesia back in 1974.

Mr Stucke, who has ridden his bike in every continent, now says he wants to focus on exploring countries he has not been to, such as Greenland.

"Back in 1962, I was determined to travel and in those days I survived on as little as £1,000 a year for the first 10 years," he said.

"All that matters to me is travelling on my bike, that's all I ever wanted to do."

alligator attack

Florida grandmother was attacked by a 5ft alligator - and fought it off with a hosepipe.

Connie Gittles, 74, thought it was just a snake when something bit her leg as she watered plants in her backyard.

"When I looked down, I saw this fellow looking at me," said Mrs Gittles who lives in a mobile home at Punta Gorda.

"I just whacked him right in the snout with the nozzle," she told News-Press.com. "After that, he took off."

State wildlife officials later removed an alligator, thought to be the same one, from a nearby pond.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman JoAnne Adams said: "Based on the bite marks and the teeth, we think it was the same one."

Mrs Gittles needed medical attention for three puncture wounds, one of which went down to her bone above the ankle.

Army recruiting in USA

Jared Guinther is 18. Tall and lanky, he will graduate from high school in June. Girls think he's cute, until they try to talk to him and he stammers or just stands there -- silent.

Diagnosed with autism at age 3, Jared is polite but won't talk to people unless they address him first. It's hard for him to make friends. He lives in his own private world.

Jared didn't know there was a war raging in Iraq until his parents told him last fall -- shortly after a military recruiter stopped him outside a Portland strip mall and complimented his black Converse All-Stars.

"When Jared first started talking about joining the Army, I thought, `Well, that isn't going to happen,"' said Paul Guinther, Jared's father. "I told my wife not to worry about it. They're not going to take anybody in the service who's autistic."

But they did. Last month, Jared came home with papers showing that he had not only enlisted, but signed up for the Army's most dangerous job: cavalry scout. He is scheduled to leave for basic training Aug. 16.

Officials are now investigating whether recruiters at the U.S. Army Recruiting Station in southeast Portland improperly concealed Jared's disability, which should have made him ineligible for service.

What happened to Jared is a growing national problem as the military faces increasing pressure to hit recruiting targets during an unpopular war.

Tracking by the Pentagon shows that complaints about recruiting improprieties are on pace to again reach record highs set in 2003 and 2004. Both the active Army and Reserve missed recruiting targets last year, and reports of recruiting abuses continue from across the country.

A family in Ohio reported that its mentally ill son was signed up, despite rules banning such enlistments and the fact that records about his illness were readily available.

In Houston, a recruiter warned a potential enlistee that if he backed out of a meeting he'd be arrested.

And in Colorado, a high school student working undercover told recruiters he'd dropped out and had a drug problem. The recruiter told the boy to fake a diploma and buy a product to help him beat a drug test.

Violations such as these forced the Army to halt recruiting for a day last May so recruiters could be retrained and reminded of the job's ethical requirements.

The Portland Army Recruiting Battalion Headquarters opened its investigation into Jared's case last week after his parents called The Oregonian and the newspaper began asking questions about his enlistment.

Maj. Curt Steinagel, commander of the Military Entrance Processing Station in Portland, said the papers filled out by Jared's recruiters contained no indication of his disability. Steinagel acknowledged that the current climate is tough on recruiters.

"I can't speak for Army," he said, "but it's no secret that recruiters stretch and bend the rules because of all the pressure they're under. The problem exists, and we all know it exists."

* * *

Jared lives in a tiny brown house in southeast Portland that looks as worn out as his parents do when they get home from work.

Paul Guinther, 57, labors 50- to 60-hour weeks as a painter-sandblaster at a tug and barge works. His wife, Brenda, 50, has the graveyard housekeeping shift at a medical center.

The couple got together nearly 16 years ago when Jared was 3. Brenda, who had two young children of her own, immediately noticed that Jared was different and pushed Paul to have the boy tested.

"Jared would play with buttons for hours on end," she said. "He'd play with one toy for days. Loud noises bothered him. He was scared to death of the toilet flushing, the lawn mower."

Jared didn't speak until he was almost 4 and could not tolerate the feel of grass on his feet.

Doctors diagnosed him with moderate to severe autism, a developmental disorder that strikes when children are toddlers. It causes problems with social interaction, language and intelligence. No one knows its cause or cure.

School and medical records show that Jared, whose recent verbal IQ tested very low, spent years in special education classes. It was only as a high school senior that Brenda pushed for Jared to take regular classes because she wanted him to get a normal rather than a modified diploma.

Jared required extensive tutoring and accommodations to pass, but in June he will graduate alongside his younger stepbrother, Matthew Thorsen.

Last fall, Jared began talking about joining the military after a recruiter stopped him on his way home from school and offered a $4,000 signing bonus, $67,000 for college and more buddies than he could count.

Matthew told his mother that military recruiting at the school and surrounding neighborhoods was so intense that one recruiter had pulled him out of football practice.

Recruiters nationwide spend several hours a day cold-calling high school students, whose phone numbers are provided by schools under the No Child Left Behind Law. They also prospect at malls, high school cafeterias, colleges and wherever else young people gather.

Brenda phoned her two brothers, both veterans. She said they laughed and told her not to worry. The military would never take Jared.

The Guinthers, meanwhile, tried to refocus their son.

"I told him, `Jared, you get out of high school. I know you don't want to be a janitor all your life. You work this job, you go to community college, you find out what you want. You can live here as long as you want,"' Paul said.

They thought it had worked until five weeks ago. Brenda said she called Jared on his cell phone to check what time he'd be home.

"I said Jared, `What are you doing?' `I'm taking the test' -- he said the entrance test. I go, `Wait a minute.' I said, `Who's giving you the test?' He said, `Corporal.' I said, `Well let me talk to him."'

Brenda said she spoke to Cpl. Ronan Ansley and explained that Jared had a disability, autism, that could not be outgrown. She said Ansley told her he had been in special classes, too -- for dyslexia.

"I said, `Wait a minute, there's a big difference between autism and your problem,"' Brenda said.

Military rules prohibit enlisting anyone with a mental disorder that interferes with school or employment, unless a recruit can show he or she hasn't required special academic or job accommodations for 12 months.

Jared has been in special education classes since preschool. Through a special program for disabled workers, he has a part-time job scrubbing toilets and dumping trash.

Jared scored 43 out of 99 on the Army's basic entrance exam -- 31 is lowest grade the Army allows for enlistment, military officials said.

After learning Jared had cleared this first hurdle toward enlistment, Brenda said she called and asked for Ansley's supervisor and got Sgt. Alejandro Velasco.

She said she begged Velasco to review Jared's medical and school records. Brenda said Velasco declined, asserting that he didn't need any paperwork. Under military rules, recruiters are required to gather all available information about a recruit and fill out a medical screening form.

"He was real cocky and he says, `Well, Jared's an 18-year-old man. He doesn't need his mommy to make his decisions for him."'

* * *

The Guinthers are not political activists. They supported the Iraq war in the beginning but have started to question it as fighting drags on. Brenda Guinther said that if her son Matthew had enlisted, she "wouldn't like it, but I would learn to live with it because I know he would understand the consequences."

But Jared doesn't understand the dangers or the details of what he's done, the Guinthers said.

When they asked Jared how long he would be in the Army, he said he didn't know. His enlistment papers show it's just over four years. Jared also was disappointed to learn that he wouldn't be paid the $4,000 signing bonus until after basic training.

During a recent family gathering, a relative asked Jared what he would do if an enemy was shooting at him. Jared ran to his video game console, killed a digital Xbox soldier and announced, "See! I can do it!"

"My concern is that if he got into a combat situation he really couldn't take someone's back," said Mary Lou Perry, 51, longtime friend of the Guinthers. "He wouldn't really know a dangerous thing. This job they have him doing, it's like send him in and if he doesn't get blown up, it's safe for the rest of us."

Steinagel, the processing station commander, told The Oregonian that Jared showed up after passing his written exam. None of his paperwork indicated that he was autistic, but if it had, Jared almost certainly would have been disqualified, he said.

On Tuesday, a reporter visited the U.S. Army Recruiting Station at the Eastport Plaza Shopping Center, where Velasco said he had not been told about Jared's autism.

"Cpl. Ansley is Guinther's recruiter," he said. "I was unaware of any type of autism or anything like that."

Velasco initially denied knowing Jared, but later said he'd spent a lot of time mentoring him because Jared was going to become a cavalry scout. The job entails "engaging the enemy with anti-armor weapons and scout vehicles," according to an Army recruiting Web site.

After he'd spoken for a few moments, Velasco suddenly grabbed the reporter's tape recorder and tried to tear out the tape, stopping only after the reporter threatened to call the police.

With the Guinthers' permission, The Oregonian faxed Jared's medical records to the U.S. Army Recruiting Battalion commander Lt. Col. David Carlton in Portland, who on Wednesday ordered the investigation.

The Guinthers said that on Tuesday evening, Cpl. Ansley showed up at their door. They said Ansley stated that he would probably lose his job and face dishonorable discharge unless they could stop the newspaper's story.

Ansley, reached at his recruiting office Thursday, declined to comment for this story.

S. Douglas Smith, spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, in Fort Knox, Ky., said he could not comment on specifics of the investigation in Portland. But he defended the 8,200 recruiters working for the active Army and Army Reserve.

Last year, the Army relieved 44 recruiters from duty and admonished 369.

"Everyone in recruiting is let down when one of our recruiters fails to uphold the Army's and Recruiting Command's standards," Smith said.

The Guinthers are eager to hear whether the Army will release Jared from his enlistment. Jared is disappointed he might not go because he thought the recruiters were his friends, they said. But they're willing to accept that.