Back when I was a police officer in suburban Texas, most of the criminals I dealt with weren’t very bright. Burglars and embezzlers, druggies and drunk drivers and domestic violence perpetrators, they had that in common. Even the ones who were well educated and held impressive job titles weren’t nearly as clever in carrying out their illicit activities. You see a lot of brilliant criminal masterminds in the movies but we didn’t see many of them in real life. But that was in Life 1.0, a.k.a. Life before the Internet.

One of the things that always made it easier for law enforcement to catch and prosecute the bad guys was the fact that the majority worked alone or with one or two fumbling, bumbling partners. From petty thievery to murder, most crimes weren’t well-thought-out. Criminal types were usually impulsive and consequently made a lot of mistakes that led to their downfall. The exception was organized crime, exemplified by the Italian Mafia – and members of those criminal organizations proved much more difficult to bring to justice.