Few years ago, Julie T. had a sting operation to bust the guy who stole her pager. The Washington Post even ran a story on it.

I was reminded by it because somebody swiped my mom's SK2 a couple of weeks ago. Next day she checked her account online and found everything wiped out. The address book already contained the thief's home phone number, as well as his friends' and...his mother's :/ In the photo section there was a picture of a young man sitting on the floor eating. My mom printed everything out and showed those juicy leads to the police.

So far the donut munchers've been sluggish on the uptake. She's mulling about calling the thief but doesn't want him to panic and throw away the pager. We're considering other strategies as well.

Julie, I'm trying to remember, how did you get the police to go along with the operation? A cop had a crush on you and did it to woo you, right? Took more than that to sway you apparently :)