The 7 Most Incredible Crime Sprees Carried Out by Animals

7 The Vervet Monkeys and Their Alcoholic Tendencies

The vervet monkeys of the island of St. Kitts developed a fondness for alcohol soon after being brought there by rum industry slave traders, 300 years ago. After escaping captivity, the monkeys started feeding from the fermented sugar cane left in the field, which meant that the traders' plan to train them into rum-serving butlers had backfired horribly.

These days, however, they get their free alcohol fix from a different source:

Tourists. You literally cannot turn your back on St. Kitts without a monkey sneaking up and stealing your drink. And if you don't have a drink, they will give you one just so they can take it. There are a variety of methods employed by the monkeys in swiping drinks, from the nervous grab and run:

... to the brilliant "knock it over and lick up what's left" tactic:

... to the confident "drink it at the table" method:

... and our favorite, the old "steal from a friend who has done all the hard work" technique:

Of course, at the end of the day they have to suffer the consequences:

6 Mr. Asbo: The Swan With Anger-Management Issues

Despite being a beautiful, innocent-looking swan, this is actually one of the angriest, most vicious birds ever -- presumably the result of all the taunting he received as a fuck-ugly little duckling.

Staking his claim over an entire area of river he lived on (which can be found in Cambridge, in the UK), the swan proceeded to beat the ever-loving shit out of anything and anyone that dared try to share his water.

The local residents gave him the cute nickname of Mr. Asbo, which in the UK stands for anti-social behavior order. In the U.S. they'd just call him Mr. Let's-Get-The-Fuck-Away-From-Here-Right-Now. Mr. Asbo seems to be particularly annoyed by boats ... so it's a little unfortunate that he happens to live in a city renowned for its participation in the yearly University Boat Race. Despite the local authorities' official warning about the swan's violent behavior, rowers continued to frequent the lake and continued to be beaten up by Mr. Asbo.

The swan has tipped over entire boats before proceeding to mercilessly attack the submerged victim with his beak. And when he can't do that, he's happy to skip straight to the "mercilessly attacking someone with his beak" stage of his terror campaign, sometimes even standing on top of the vessel to increase the intimidation factor. He even learned to attack the most vulnerable part of the boat -- yes, this swan officially knows more about boating than most humans.

One rower called him "a vicious beast" and added: "I don't go past it if I am alone. ... I'm too scared". In Cambridge, the slightest quacking sound is enough to cause uncontrollable fits of panic among the population.

Turns out that Mr. Asbo was just misunderstood, though: A bird whisperer claims to have cured him of his anti-social behavior by uncovering its psychological roots. She also said, "When I was communicating telepathically first of all he portrayed a feeling of fear and being quite angry with humans." That's right. Telepathically.

Inside this woman's head, all you hear is angry quacking.

5 Oscar the Fetishist Kleptomaniac Cat

Oscar, a cat in Southampton in the UK, began his life of crime at an early age stealing unimportant items that were unlikely to be missed -- a random sock, a garden glove, a late-period Picasso. But as he progressed into adulthood, his tastes became more refined. He now specializes almost exclusively in lingerie.

Developing a penchant for girls underwear, Oscar began prowling the washing lines of unsuspecting students living in his area, bringing home all sorts of unmentionables. According to his owners, on a good day he can bring back 10 items. Oddly enough, they appear more impressed than alarmed by Oscar's problem, remarking on the lengths their cat goes through to bring them "presents." "We can't give him back now as he makes such an effort with all these gifts. He's got a lovely personality and is a very loving cat," said Birgitt Weismantel, 56, who has also adopted a paranoid-schizophrenic iguana and the guy who shot Ronald Reagan.

Oscar's owners did have the decency to at least phone police and neighbors and let them know it wasn't some perverted guy stealing their undies; it was only a perverted cat who may or may not be masturbating to them.

4 Barney the Foul-Mouthed Parrot

Barney is a macaw living in the Nuneaton Wildlife Sanctuary, in the UK. When Barney arrived there at the tender age of two, they noticed he had already acquired a large vocabulary from his previous owner ... and it consisted entirely of nasty fuck words. Since we have no idea who the previous owner was, we're going to go ahead and tell you it was Gordon Ramsey.

But anyone can drop a few F-bombs and think he's being clever. It's all about context, and Barney knows this well. That's why one time, during a visit from the local mayor, Barney looked her in the eye and told her she could "fuck off." He then turned to a vicar and a couple of policemen who happened to be standing by (apparently they were shooting a Benny Hill sketch there) and proclaimed, "You can fuck off too, wanker." No, really.

Barney is already sounding like our hero, but his exploits didn't stop there -- or even with him. When two African Grey parrots moved into his cage, Barney took it upon himself to teach them his favorite words: "fuck," "bollocks" and "twat."

3 Otto the Octopus and His Uncontrollable Vandalism

As anyone who's been bored enough to watch Animal Planet late at night will tell you, the octopus is a creature of very high intelligence (and occasionally, precognitive powers). But what would happen if they directed all that impressive brain power specifically toward causing trouble? World chaos, probably, because it took one octopus doing that to turn an entire aquarium upside down in Coburg, Germany.

Bored with the unbearable dullness of life in an enclosed tank (and possibly suffering from a little ADD), Otto the octopus is constantly looking for ways to keep himself entertained. And since he lives in a fucking aquarium, he needs to go to great lengths to achieve that, mostly in ways that involve being a jerk to his neighbors. Like when he starts juggling the hermit crabs, or rearranging everything inside the water tank to cause stress to its other inhabitants.

And if that isn't enough, he starts throwing rocks and cracking the glass.

But that's not what made Otto famous -- that would be the time he endangered the entire aquarium. In a fit of boredom, Otto decided he'd had enough of the light shining down on his tank and realized he had the intelligence and the means to do something about it. Swinging himself onto the edge of his tank, he took aim at the light and squirted a jet of water toward it, killing that light ... plus every other light in the building.

Otto's squirt short-circuited the electrical supply to the entire aquarium, which could have had fatal implications for the animals residing in it when the electrical pumps in the tanks stopped working. The aquarium workers fixed the problem as soon as they noticed it ... and then Otto did it again. And again, and again, until the staff held a three night vigil, sleeping on the floor of the aquarium, and finally realized how he was doing it.

2 Red the Dog and His Debauched Clandestine Parties

Red is a lurcher who lives at the Battersea Dogs Home in London. Within a few weeks of his arrival, strange things started happening there, with staff arriving every morning to find the rooms strewn with food and piss. Either that the dogs were somehow sneaking out of their kennels, or Keith Richards was stopping by at night.

After enduring this routine for a couple of weeks, the keepers enlisted the help of a local company to install cameras to record the nightly antics of the pooches, either to find out how they were getting out, or out of a suspicion that whatever they found would be hilarious.

What they saw was newcomer Red using his nose and teeth to open the latch of his kennel ...

... and then repeating the same procedure on the kennel of his best pal, Lucky.

The pair then patrolled the room, deciding which of their fellow canines were cool enough to come to their parties (which involved up to nine other dogs). The rest would look on in impotence and pretend they didn't even want to get invited.

In the middle of the celebration, Red would sneak away and take his girlfriend to his room for some private time.

Trying to turn Red's outrageous behavior into something positive, a spokeswoman for the dog home remarked that lurchers aren't usually known for their intelligence and that Red is remarkably inquisitive and easy to train.

1 Kanellos, the Legendary Riot Dog

Photographers who had been taking shots of the riots in Greece were surprised to notice that one individual could be spotted in all of them. In fact, he has shown up at every protest in the capital for the last two years and many before that. Since the country is on the brink of bankruptcy, that's a lot of protests -- meaning the rioter is either really committed to the cause or really, really bored.

The reason for the photographers' surprise: The rioter was a dog.

His name is Kanellos, and he can be seen dodging cans of tear gas:

Remaining smug when being blasted by a water cannon:

Encouraging protesters to attack the police:

And patrolling the gates of Hades:

Some claim the original Kanellos died two years ago at around age 17, and the one showing up since then is his successor, Thodorius ... which would be even more awesome, because it would mean Kanellos' example is inspiring other dogs to rise up against man's oppression. By the way, he also inspired someone to record an anthem:

We can't tell you Kanellos organized all those protests too, mainly because we're afraid to get on his bad side.

You can find more from K on her blog, Bridezilla Comics.

For more animals that you should be worried about, check out 13 Real Animals Lifted Directly Out of Your Nightmares and The 6 Most Adorable Animals (To Ever Go On a Bloody Rampage).

And stop by Linkstorm to discover what really happened on Noah's Ark.

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