Well, it’s not technically ‘bootlegging’ but why let the truth get in the way of a good headline, right? No, it’s about a man with a false leg who used it to smuggle bottles of spirits out of a shop. Damned cunning!

The 51-year-old man was arrested by the Guardia Civil in the Albolote (Granada) for allegedly having ‘lifted’ 50 bottles (valued at 600 euros) of alcoholic in this fashion.

Now, to manage that amount of bottles he went in and out of the same supermarket 25 times, each time loading a couple of bottles into the hollow of his false leg. Strangely, the staff didn’t find his comings and goings suspicious. We say ‘strangely,’ because you would, wouldn’t you: a man with an artificially leg, coming in and out 25 times, making a chinking sound around the level of his plastic ankles.

It’s not sure how he got the bottles in – must have cut an opening below the knee – but he always made a bee-line for the shelf where the spirits were, smuggling away ones worth twelve euros each time. He would then exit via the cashier, making a small purchase, but sometimes not. The inside of the false leg was also lined with a material to shield the contents from the security alarms at the exit of the shop.

In fact, he was only rumbled at a routine traffic-control checkpoint somewhere in the township, where he was asked to open the boot of the car. The Guardia Civil were greeted by 50 bottles of spirits. When quizzed he could not provide a plausible explanation for how he had come by them, so they were confiscated and his name and details taken.

And then the next day the supermarket reported a loss of 50 bottles, so the police put two and two together and went around and arrested him.

Editorial comment: That’s what you get for being greedy – fancy doing the same place 25 times over in the same day!

(News: Albolote, Granada, Andalucía)