Geoffrey Kelly > Quotes

“It is always wise to suspect everybody until you can prove logically,
and to your own satisfaction, that they are innocent. —AGATHA CHRISTIE, The Mysterious Affair at Styles”
― Geoffrey Kelly, Thirteen Perfect Fugitives: The True Story of the Mob, Murder, and the World's Largest Art Heist

“After two years working in Providence, I was transferred to Boston’s HQC and assigned to Squad C-5, an economic crimes squad, where I specialized in telemarketing fraud cases. This was in the days before emails and texting, when con men actually called their prospective victims on the telephone like real fraudsters, not like those lovelorn Nigerian princes who fire off emails from inside their lavish palaces. And in a forgotten era when spam was still known only as a canned luncheon meat and perhaps a tagline in World War II documentaries, the victims answered the phone. My subjects would purchase lists of potential victims, often culled from those cardboard boxes positioned next to cash registers at pizzerias or delis, the ones that read Enter your name for a chance to win a 1996 Ford Mustang. And back then, a lot of gullible people did just that. There was no Mustang, of course, and everyone who dropped their name and number in that box would soon receive a glut of phone calls from telemarketers—perhaps even one of my subjects—informing them that they were big winners. They won, all right, and not just the Mustang; these victims won prizes from contests and lotteries they didn’t even recall entering. They just had to pay some minimal taxes before the winnings could be released. Outrageous claims made; checks mailed.”
― Geoffrey Kelly, Thirteen Perfect Fugitives: The True Story of the Mob, Murder, and the World's Largest Art Heist

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something
when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. —UPTON SINCLAIR”
― Geoffrey Kelly, Thirteen Perfect Fugitives: The True Story of the Mob, Murder, and the World's Largest Art Heist

“On February 5, 2017, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s game jersey was stolen out of his locker minutes after the final whistle of Super Bowl LI in Houston. The following morning, images went viral of a forlorn Brady sitting at his locker, a jersey-less duffel bag in his lap, evoking sympathy from everywhere but Atlanta.* Later that week, I received a call from NFL Security, requesting the FBI’s assistance to help them locate the stolen jersey. In order for the case to be worked by the Bureau, however, we first had to show that Brady’s jersey satisfied the elements of the National Stolen Property Act, in that it: 1.crossed state lines or international boundaries; and 2.possessed a value of at least $5,000 The latter element would not be a problem, since in the days following the game, a number of notable sports memorabilia collectors estimated that Brady’s jersey would fetch at least a million dollars on the open market, well exceeding the $5,000 requirement. Proof that the jersey had crossed state lines would come a bit later. Over the next five weeks, we were able to track Brady’s stolen jersey to the home of a fanatical sports memorabilia collector who lived in Mexico City. On March 17, I flew down to Mexico City and recovered not only Brady’s Super Bowl LI jersey, but two other items of stolen sports memorabilia: Brady’s jersey from Super Bowl XLIX and Von Miller’s Broncos helmet from Super Bowl 50.”
― Geoffrey Kelly, Thirteen Perfect Fugitives: The True Story of the Mob, Murder, and the World's Largest Art Heist