Stealing cars? Yawn. That’s okay, I guess, if you don’t know how to dream big. Trucks? Boring. Locomotives? Big deal. But how about what those cars and trucks drive on? How about a road? That’s the perfect crime, right there, road theft. Viakleptonomy. Just like these two guys from Nantong did.
Yes, the two men, identified as Gu and Yang, stole a rural road in Nantong city. They stole it by stripping off the entire surface of the road, 630 tons of concrete slabs. They took the slabs by truck to a quarry, where they got about 12,000 yuan for their considerable trouble.
Just for reference, 12,000 yuan is just under $2000 US. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t find a contractor who’d remove 630 pounds of concrete that cheaply. What these guys did sounds like not so much a heist as it sounds like a really crappy, back-breaking, underpaid job. A job no one wanted done, but still.
The pair were eventually spotted by police roadside cameras transporting concrete in a farm vehicle. Which brings up some valuable lessons: there’s cameras everywhere and if you’re hauling stolen heavy stuff, use closed vehicles. They of course were caught, and never got to split that sweet sweet meager road-money.
So, it is possible to steal a road. But as far as crimes go, it’s not even worth it. My advice is to stick with the rectal diamond smuggling that you already know pays well.