Prisoner Escapes by Emailing his own Release Order

Well, by golly, you knew it had to happen someday. A man by the name of Neil Moore who was in a British pokey for fraud and escape from custody (they should have known!) found himself a mobile phone and sent instructions to the prison staff to release him. Guess what? They did!

Yup, it seems that officers at Wandsworth Prison in London allowed Mr. Moore to walk out the prison gates based on some bogus bail instructions he'd sent them from a fake e-mail address that he created by using his phone. 

Officials admitted the plot was pretty much "ingenious" and I'm wondering why somebody hasn't tried the ploy before. His bogus email address identified himself as a senior court clerk and the message went on to tell prison staff that his bail had been paid and to release the prisoner. And so they did.

They only found out about the deception when solicitors went into the prison to find him for an interview three days later and discovered he wasn't there anymore. Oops!

Mr. Moore had used four different aliases earlier in order to commit fraud. That's why he was in the pokey in the first place. He was convicted of having posed as a staff member of several British banks and somehow managed to persuade some really big companies to give the bank (him!) money for some reason or another and apparently the deceptions worked rather well. His take, according to court records, totaled around $2 million.

The judge in the case was quite impressed, describing his behavior as "ingenious criminality." Apparently Mr. Moore seems to be quite good at this sort of thing. Perhaps he should think about getting himself a "real" job?