Lost in Google Translation – Maximum Crime, Minimum Punishment

Hey! Are you a no good, lousy, stinking criminal? Do you want to nab as much swag as you can with as few consequences as possible? Well, as a journalist, I have news for you! The punishment for stealing everything in Iceland is… three months!

Yes, you read that right. Steal, plunder, rob as much as you want and you’ll only have to serve three months in the can. Not bad right? I understand that it might be a hard task to, you know, steal literally everything. It might take a bit of planning, maybe a few alibi’s and definitely some balls of steel, but surely it’s worth it if you only have to sit in prison for a few months.

This headline from Fréttablaðið certainly caught our eye; especially Pollý, who frantically started stealing everyone’s shoes from their feet, food from our plates and toys from nearby children. After getting her under control and before we hatched our grand plan to begin stealing everything in existence, we decided to do what most journalists don’t bother with and read the entire story.

A man in Stykkishólmur has been imprisoned for three months for stealing everything… from the houses he broke into. Even then, he didn’t technically steal everything from the houses. The story goes that he burgled five different places and stole a variety of things, such as a few 66ºNorth hats. I assumed the punishment for that would be death, however it seems that the police are a bit more lenient than I. There were a lot of items he stole, but I do think Frettablaðið might have been a bit misleading with their headline as funnily enough, not “everything” has been stolen. Anything for a click, amirite?

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