MovieChat Forums > The Real Hustle (2006) Discussion > How can they not be arrested?

How can they not be arrested?


How can these people not be arrested for stealing from their "victims"? I understand thay say they are doing this to show people how easy it is to be scammed, but in reality, these people are committing crimes by the act itself. I'm not saying that they are actually using the credit cards as they would if they were actually scamming someone but when they "steal" someone's purse or bag, can't they be arrested for theft?

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No, because there is no genuine criminal intent. Yea they mean to steal, but not for their own gain, which would be pretty obvious due to the fact theyve got a whole camera crew lol

"I'm soo wet"
"Yeah they told me that would happen in health class"

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Thanks. I guess all those years of living in Houston, where crime is very common, made me jaded because as soon as I noticed my purse or bag was missing and I know I didn't just misplace it...I would have been on the phone to the police. I know there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of getting my crap back, but at least there would be a report. I guess before you could finish the call to the police, the camera crew and others would step in and say wait, this isn't what you think. Maybe there have been people who flipped out, but chances are we won't see that.

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remember its tv, quite likely the people who are hustled have actually been set up by someone they know whos consented to have it happen to them.

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"Yea they mean to steal, but not for their own gain,"

Motivation FOR the crime doesn't enter into it. Stealing is stealing.

They don't mean to STEAL, they mean to BORROW for financial gain indeed (that's what a TV show is), and possibly to inform the public of scams.

So while you probably meant to say 'They don't mean to steal, they just mean to borrow, so there's no criminal intent', you expressed it all wrong.

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theres no intention to premanently deprive, so legally its not stealing in Britain

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what everyone else said... and not to mention that the crew takes the "victims" after the scam, explain what's going on and return the "stolen" money/goods. After most scams you see interviews of the victims commenting on the scam and so on.

Something else I would wonder about is how come no one ever sued for maybe missing an important business meeting when their car is stolen for instance. I guess they have some way of covering their asses for stuff like that as well though.

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the point of the show is to stop people being the victims of these thefts. They wouldn't get arrested for tbis. Plus they give back anything they stole.

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all the points made plus... the people they are hustling wouldn't know about it until they got home or complained about not receiving goods. Its usually not one of those things thats an immediate notice. Most of the time, the victims only know because they are told so!

"Oh Buffy, you really need to have every square inch of your ass kicked!" -Dark Willow

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WHAT?!? That is insanely BS reasoning. By this logic anyone could steal anything as long as they film it and say "oh we intended to give it back". Intent is very hard to prove in court. They could do this all day and just give it back whenever they are caught. Right? Then they could say they didn't intend to keep it, which would be true even. They intend to give it back whenever caught. Hell any thief anywhere could use that excuse "I intend to give it back".

There absolutely MUST be more here than meets the eye. Notice you never even see the police involved. At least I haven't in the eps I've watched. Police and being occasionally caught in the act are a part of every "real" hustle. No hustle is 100% sure thing.

Nope, if it were actually happening as shown, it is certainly illegal.

I wish they would just be honest about who is "in on it". Does the casino know? Do the police know they are "faking" some illegal gambling in a parking lot? Do they really steal people's cars only to give them back? I'd still be a bit steamed, personally. Especially really nice cars. Some people would prefer you drive their wife around the block. It very well could still be a good show if they'd just be honest. Otherwise I'm just too wary of the whole thing. As they say themselves..."If it seems too good to be true..."

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I would imagine they contact the owners of the casinos etc but not the staff, if they all knew what was going on, then there'd be no point as the staff would let it happen. The point is to show that its possible without getting caught. Also, they wouldn't be able to put the 'hidden' cameras in without permission of someone. As with the police, they probably have to get a filming license or something and inform the police of what they're doing. You'd have to be really audacious to rob somewhere with a film crew and then put it on the tv.

In the long run, I can see how this would be a benefit to police forces, if they are given the information from the people doing the hustles, then they are maybe better advised in how to stop these things happening for real. The same for casinso, if they expose the weak points in their securities etc, then they are saving money.


"Oh Buffy, you really need to have every square inch of your ass kicked!" -Dark Willow

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I agree. I just wish they would let us know. They are purposely, I think, inferring that they do this without the consent of management or the law. If they are dishonest about this, I feel they could also just out and out stage the whole thing. The show is only interesting if there is some true candidness among the marks. Some of the "interviews" afterwords seem very very suspicious and they often say they are "waiting for the police". Would they not have let them in out it prior to them calling the police? No popo anywhere would be happy with that.

There is just more there than they insinuate. Period.

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It's like the situation where a corporation wants to test and improve their security, so they hire hackers and social engineers to test their systems, but they don't tell the staff.

This makes it all a real, functional test, and then at the end, cops won't put them to jail for successfully breaking into the computers, retrieving data, passwords and such that the corporation doesn't want anyone outside itself to know.

When someone hires you to do a job, there's a paper trail you can refer to, if cops become interested.

The same thing happens when an enormous TV corporation is making a show, and cops become interested in what's happening. They have a huge paper trail, outlining what's going on, plus a track record of 100% honesty with the property. I am sure they even pay for the gas and any damage they might have caused (if you drive someone else's car, you are shortening the 'lifespan' of the car, which is probably also taken into account).

If they don't have an intent to actually stealing anything, intent to actually scam anyone (revealing the scam at the end every time means they aren't really scamming someone), or intent to do any unlawful activity, and in the end, no one is harmed in any way, it's very similar to the 'hiring a hacker' situation. The staff might think the hacker is a criminal, but they don't know their boss actually hired him.

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rrpostal, stange as it may seem the point of intent is indeed true. In Ireland about 20 years ago we had a craze of joyriding whereby guys, usually teenagers would "steal" people's cars and drive them around like crazy doing all sorts of damage to them...often they were caught but they could not be charged with stealing as they never intended to keep the car!!...they used to get charged with driving without insurance or even driving without a seatbelt, crazy stuff but as they say the law's an ass!!!!

Noel

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Intent is not hard to prove, if it's pre-planned. It is written all over the show, plans, scripts, BBC programming planning papers, and so on. They could prove it very easily.

These are people of a major TV corporation, they are not some individuals that 'just film it' and make claims. It's not the filming that makes it 'OK' (if anything does), it's that they have pre-planned everything in SUCH a detail, poured a lot of money into producing the show, they are a big, well-known corporation, and their track record proves they have indeed given 100% property back to the rightful owners, thus NEVER stolen anything, it's a pretty easy to understand that they can do it.

You can't compare THAT situation I just outlined to some individual bums on the street with a camera, making claims if they're caught.

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