Theft ring, 'Bling Ring of Princeton,' steals from U-Store*

A gang of young thieves, who call themselves “The Bling Ring of Princeton,” has allegedly been taking petty items from the Princeton University Store, the Princeton Police Department reported in a press release. Items stolen include a banana, the lid of a can of ramen, a grape, the cap of a pen, a granola bar and various other sundry non-valuables.

Princeton Police Department Captain Nick Sutter explained that with each theft, the modus operandi appears to be the same. The thief walks into the U-Store, looks around to make sure no one’s watching, takes whatever items they were planning to take and then walks out. The thefts have been captured on the U-Store's new, state-of-the-art security system, implemented during previous crime spikes involving entire tins of sushi.

“Simple, but effective,” he said.

Sutter said he believes the students are all members of the operations research and financial engineering department, where they were taught the subtle art of petty theft by leading professors in the field.

With each petty theft, the group leaves a calling card, Sutter added. The calling card explains that “The Bling Ring of Princeton” was motivated to commit these thefts by a feeling of helpless rage against the phony and wealthy lifestyle of the University and that they think of themselves as stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

The Department of Public Safety has managed to apprehend one of the crooks, a member of the Class of 2017, whose name was found in a number of publicly available police records about the case. The Daily Princetonian granted the student anonymity for the sake of his résumé and Google Search results. The student admitted his role in the thefts and said he believes he is representing the 99 percent by committing them.

“Princeton is nothing but an orange bubble of bottomless ambition, overpriced goods and elitism,” he said. “That’s what we’re fighting against. Soon we’ll move to Studio 34, the C-Store, even the Wa, which was once a place of the people but has been gentrified beyond belief. We’ll make Project Mayhem look like Project Nothing.”

The student refused to give up his fellows, Sutter said, in an admirable show of loyalty and allegiance. He added that he is not Donald Rumsfeld and has done nothing to persuade him of giving up the information beyond talking to him.

The student has been examined by a psychologist, Ino Everything, who said that the thefts are due, not to a feeling of anti-capitalist goodwill, but to a feeling of ennui.

“Kleptomania is almost exclusively a disease that afflicts the wealthy,” she said. “They sit around all day, reading about stocks and snorting cocaine— obviously they’re going to get bored.Walking into the U-Store and trying to extract meaningless items without being seen is just another form of thrill-seeking.”

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