Police Investigating Virtual Burglary of Home That Doesn’t Exist
Italian police are investigating the burglary of the home of 44-year-old Paola Letizia. Normally, I would pay a story like this no mind. And frankly, as soon as I’m done writing this, I won’t. But this is no ordinary burglary. Because the home in question doesn’t exist. Paola called in the fuzz after noticing virtual items she had purchased for her home account in the Facebook game Pet Society had mysteriously vanished, leaving only her virtual cat. Sometimes, being a crazy cat lady isn’t enough. Sometimes, you need to be an online crazy cat lady. But I digress. Letizia had spent the equivalent of about $139 on all manner of decor lines of code for her home account, and police are now conducting an inquiry for ‘illegal and aggravated entry’ into Letizia’s email account. If caught, the ‘burglar’ faces 1-5 years in prison under Italy’s criminal code. If this goes through, I will eat my hat. Live. On YouTube. Not that I’d side with any would-be thief or anything, but seriously, five years in prison and the soap-dropping adventures that may ensue is far too big a price to pay for deleting a picture of an aquarium from a picture of a living room on someone’s Facebook account. For real.
