Norbert and his sidekick Bruno are strolling through a residential section of Cincinnati when they spot an electronic device on the front porch of somebody’s house.

The boys are over the fence in the blink of an eye, grab the object and take off. Once they get home they forget about their new electronic toy and pick up playing Game Boy.

These two guys have never been arrested. But they’ve shoplifted quite a few times and like to steal whenever the opportunity presents itself.

You’ll appreciate the irony of what’s about to happen to our guys. They stole an electronic object from Randy who lives about 12 blocks from them. What the boys do not know is that Randy was arrested last month on multiple fraud charges.

Part of Randy’s pre-trial order is that he remain under house arrest until the trial date. To insure Randy’s cooperation, the court ordered that Randy wear an ankle monitor so authorities can be sure he remains at home.

The unit has a base station which monitors the ankle unit and signals law enforcement if the base station ever moves.

I’m sure you see where we’re headed here. Norbert and Bruno stole the base station which immediately began sending out a homing signal.

Less than an hour after the electronic device was stolen, two police officers and a detective had tracked the missing device to Bruno’s house. When police knocked on the door Norbert and Bruno were clueless about the ankle monitor’s homing device.

The boys thought police were there to investigate the stolen property they had shoplifted. The boys blurted out the tale of their criminal history as they lead police to another room in the house where the loot was stashed. All the information the boys blurted out was spontaneous—all voluntary with no questions asked.

Cops appreciate a case like this every now and then. Most crooks are not as cooperative as Norbert and Bruno.