A jeweller from Dusseldorf, in Germany, lost two suitcases full of gold and diamonds when his security guard stopped to allow his dog to find a tree to christen.

Harald Herzmann decided to hire the guard and dog to accompany him to Tirol, Austria, to watch over the 1,522,147 euros ($2,501,257) worth of jewels.

“I often make the journey but not usually with so much jewellery, and had hired a security guard and dog as extra precautions,” he said. “I was walking the dog together with the security man and somebody grabbed the suitcases from the car.”

Police suspect an opportunistic passer by and are making their inquiries.

On a wing and a prayer

Following stories of inventive ways of smuggling mobile phones inside prisons to allow inmates to conduct their affairs while behind bars, comes yet another way to get drugs passed the screws.

New Zealand prisons have reported an influx of methamphetamine, or speed, being smuggled inside the carcasses of dead birds. Apparently the birds were being hollowed out and stuffed with the drug before being tossed over the fence by well-wishing friends on the outside, The Press newspaper said.

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“A great number of our prisoners are quite cunning and people underestimate their ingenuity,” said Karen Urwin, spokesperson for the NZ corrections department. “Some are quite desperate, so will resort to any wacky measures.”

Another popular method of smuggling involved body cavities, such as the eye sockets of those who wear glass eyes.

“You can guarantee if one person figures out a way to get drugs in, it will spread like wildfire,” Urwin told the paper.

Granny got smack

This week’s edition is the Folklaw of older women knee-deep in crime. The first is the story of an Iraqi-born grandmother from Fairfield Heights in Sydney, who was arrested trying to sneak heroin into Australia in her underwear.

Fawzieh Nona Danial, 58, was sentenced to four years jail in the District Court in Sydney last week. She had entered a guilty plea on charges of attempting to import a marketable quantity of heroin, after flying to Sydney from Vietnam.

Apparently Danial had considered ‘doing a Schapelle’ too risky, so she opted for secreting the four packets of drugs in her lacy underthings. The 239 grams of heroin were detected on arrival in Sydney Airport where the woman was arrested.

Elderly woman dies in shoot out with police

Another decidedly unfunny story of a granny falling afoul of the law involves an 88-year-old US woman from Atlanta.

The elderly woman, Kathryn Johnson, was killed by narcotics officers after she opened fire on them as they tried to serve a warrant at her home address.

The plain clothes officers said she was the only one home at 7pm that fateful night, when they approached her front door.

Officer Joe Cobb, a police spokesman, said all three of the policemen were hit — in the arm, thigh and shoulder respectively — when the woman started firing after they forced their way inside.

According to the spokesman, the officers were carrying a legal warrant and had earlier knocked and announced their presence.

“My aunt was in good health,” said niece Sarah Dozier on WAGA-TV. “I’m sure she panicked when they kicked that door down. There was no reason they had to go in there and shoot her down like a dog.”

Bulletproof bra

A woman on holiday in Russia is the third to be touched by crime this week, only this time on the receiving end. An extremely fortunate Atlanta woman was plucked from the jaws of death on New Year’s Eve by none other than a cheap gold bra.

The 46-year-old mother, Debbie Bingham, was heralding the new year in St Petersburg when she was struck in the shoulder by a falling bullet.

It is still being determined whether the bullet was returning to earth after being jubilantly shot in the air, or was fired more directly at Bingham. The only sure thing is that the bra strap caught the bullet, saving the woman from potential death.

Bingham had earlier been waiting for a fireworks display with her family when her daughter noticed blood staining her mother’s blouse, George Kajtsa, spokesman for the St. Petersburg Police Department, said. A .45 calibre bullet was found wedged in the strap of the bra, causing no more than a “big scratch and bruising”, Kajtsa said.

“It was a very cheap bra,” Bingham told WTSP-TV. “It wasn’t very expensive, and I’d love to have a couple more of those bras.”

Hooker hooks into cashless client

An enraged prostitute stormed a New Zealand farmhouse with three friends to retrieve money she said had not been paid to her following services rendered, resulting in a violent explosion of crime.

When her alleged client, Christopher Muir, refused to pay for a second time, the woman let loose with a bat, smashing the windows and doors of his car nearby.

Not to be outdone, Muir ran to his tractor, while the woman, one Jacinta Borrie, tried to escape with her friends. Before they got away, Muir rammed the front loader of the tractor through their car’s windscreen, chasing the vehicle as it sped from the scene of the crime.

Both parties were charged, and both entered guilty pleas in the District Court of Timaru. Muir faces charges of unlawful taking, burglary, incurring debt by deception and dangerous driving of a tractor, while Borrie was accused of intentionally damaging Muir’s car. The case continues.

Quote of the Week

JOURNALIST: “[A]re you likely to have anything to say imminently on emissions trading?”

JOHN HOWARD: “On emissions trading, I don’t have anything specifically in mind, but something may occur between now and when I might say something on it to cause me to say something on it. But I don’t have anything particularly in mind at the present time.”

The Prime Minister speaking at a press conference, Parliament House, Canberra, 24 January 2007