5
Pablo Escobar Would Cheat At Monopoly
We all know Pablo Escobar Gaviria was not a nice guy. He became one of the richest men in the world by building a cocaine empire, murdering anyone who stood in his way, and terrorizing the people of Colombia with his cartel (and with his hippos). And as if that wasn't bad enough, the guy cheated at Monopoly.
Despite making $420 million a week, Escobar's insatiable greed for money apparently included Monopoly bucks. In the 2010 HBO documentary Sins of My Father, Pablo's son Juan Sebastian Marroquin Santos, who legally changed his name to avoid the shame of sharing one with a board game cheat, recounted how the cartel mob boss would constantly swindle his own family at Monopoly during family game nights just to beat his elementary school-aged children.
Wikimedia Commons/Colombian National PoliceYes, even mass-murdering monsters make time for family fun time.
But as a career criminal Escobar had a certain reputation to uphold. Not content with sneaking out a few extra bills like a normal cheat, the King of Cocaine would plan his Monopoly heists hours in advance, hiding brightly colored Monopoly bills all over the house and even enlist some of his cronies to Ocean's Eleven money out of the game box while their sore loser of a crime boss was distracting his marks -- i.e. his loving family. "We would start the game and hand out the money according to the rules of the game, everything was going fine until he would lose and lose and lose, but would never run out of cash," Juan would later recall of his notorious father, a frustration he shared with the Colombian police and the CIA.
4
Vladimir Putin Stole A Super Bowl Ring Just Because He Can
Remember that scene from The Simpsons where Mr. Burns lets Fidel Castro hold his trillion-dollar bill and the dictator just keeps it, knowing there's nothing the dumb American can do about it? In another moment of extreme Simpsons prescience, the same thing happened in real life. (Except you have to replace the Communist dictator with a post-Communist dictator and a novelty dollar bill with tens of thousands of dollars in shinies.)
When New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft met with Putin in 2005, he was proudly wearing the Super Bowl ring his team had won that year. Trying to show off, he handed the heavy golden ring to the Russian head of state. Putin put it on, said: "I can kill someone with this ring," put the ring in his pocket and simply walked away -- a wall of bodyguards blocking the crestfallen Kraft.
Like any robbed tourist, Kraft went to complain to his government, but the White House wasn't not interested in starting World War III over a gaudy ring. So they told Kraft that he had been mistaken and that he had obviously given that ring as a "gift." Days later, Kraft made the official statement: "I decided to give him the ring as a symbol of the respect and admiration that I have for the Russian people and the leadership of President Putin," waiting eight full years before deciding to snitch on the ex-KGB officer, who still denies that the ring, which is on proud display in the Kremlin, is in his possession.
Government of the Russian FederationThat man definitely had a watch at the start of that handshake.