How I Became a Crook and Healed Myself of It

I loved stealing. Only from institutions, of course, never from people. Mostly department stores and supermarkets. Sometimes it was delicacies. Anything that seemed too expensive to me, I found a way to take without paying. Stealing is the cheapest way to shop, after all.

At one point in my life, a few years ago, I could not leave a supermarket until I had made sure there was something I had not paid for. Then I felt like a hero and took a mischievous delight in it. I also loved stealing books from bookshops and expensive items from big department stores. I worked out such a good system that I could not possibly get caught.

Once I bought a €300 Japanese kitchen knife, the kind you can only dream of owning. I walked out of the store with it and handed it to a friend. Then I went straight back in with the receipt, took the same knife off the shelf again, and returned it at a register on a different floor as if I had brought it from home. I got the money back, and that is how I took a knife home for free. I felt like a hero, a magician. It felt purely good, and it felt right. Nobody could convince me it was not a good idea. When a friend or partner joined in, I felt even more like a hero. I loved telling other people how to do it with my method, so I could be the hero who had invented it.

By the end I was 43, maybe 44, and still a crook.

But it was not only stealing from supermarkets and department stores. It was outsmarting the system. Where can I get something for free? Where can I order something, or lie, to gain an advantage? It was aimed exclusively at the system and at institutions, and I had no guilty conscience about it at all. Insurance companies, for example. It made total sense to me to earn money from them instead of paying them. Institutions are impersonal, and I had no qualms about fleecing them. People, on the other hand, I always treated fairly. From a certain point in my life on, anyway.

How did I become a crook in the first place? I remember exactly.

It was a sunny Sunday. I was five or six, walking with my father through a flea market. My eye fell on a big stamp lying in a box with fifty others. What made it special was that it gleamed silver in the sunlight and had a press mechanism. As a boy I loved anything with a mechanism. I asked my father to buy it for me. He asked the seller how much it was, and the seller said 12 marks. That was a lot of money for my father back then, so he decided not to buy it.

We walked on, and I was so sad that I had not got it. Then, around a corner, my father pulled the stamp out of his pocket and gave it to me. I was delighted and asked him how he had done it. He told me he had simply taken it while the seller was not looking. My father and I were both thrilled that it had been possible.

I think that is where my career as a crook began.

As a teenager I found a way to top up my pocket money. I bought cheap new bikes that looked very good for 200 marks and resold them as used for 600, claiming they had cost 1,200 new. It felt great. It was the feeling of being clever, and of using that cleverness to get ahead. Back then it did not bother me at all to cheat strangers. That stopped later, when I matured a little and cheated only institutions.

One day my father told me about an idea a friend of his had. The friend ran castings to recruit extras for film productions. When people had no photos with them, which was most of them, he charged 20 marks for photos taken at the casting. On a single casting day you could earn 8,000 marks that way. That was a lot of money.

A friend and I took the idea and planned it well in advance. We drove to a big film studio, made an appointment and introduced ourselves as a Latvian film company that wanted to hold a casting there. The studio has so much to do with film and television, we said, and it would draw people in on the day. They liked that. They even told the press about the casting themselves, so we could count on plenty of people showing up.

We brought in two or three other friends and paid them an hourly wage. We had various materials printed, took forms and pens, and got a pavilion and a camera. On the day, we set everything up and told people we were building an extras database and that they had a chance to get into a film. Most of them had no photo with them, so we told them our photographer could take one for €20. Many did it. Some were disappointed and angry, but we took in a lot of money.

The press came too, including a big tabloid and a large national newspaper. They interviewed us about what exactly we were doing, and it was perfectly pleasant talking to them.

That was a Saturday. On Monday I opened the newspaper, and there was a big article titled "Extras Ripped Off." The journalist had seen through us. I sank into the ground with shame and guilt. Thank God she had not named us, or the company, which luckily did not exist. Still, it was a real punch in the gut, and I have not done anything on that scale since. I have not directly cheated or lied to people since.

I had noticed during the whole thing that it was hard to look people in the face and tell them they had a chance to be in a film, knowing it was not true. Something in me felt uneasy. I did it anyway, for the money. But once I was exposed, I stopped.

There were years when I earned well and stole little, and years when I earned little and stole a lot.

I remember one time in particular. I was living on unemployment benefit, with very little money. I had just moved into my first apartment and had a TV connection installed, and I wanted to buy a small antenna adapter at an electronics store. It cost 7 marks. That was a lot for me, because I lived on 600 marks a month at most, and that had to cover rent, food and everything else. So I could not really afford it.

I took the adapter out of its packaging, got rid of the packaging somewhere, and put the adapter in my pocket. As I went through the checkout, the store detective pulled me aside and took me to his room. He said he had seen everything. I was so stunned that I decided to deny it all. I was so ashamed that I insisted the adapter was mine and that I had brought it with me. He walked me to where I had hidden the packaging and took it out, and I still stubbornly claimed I had not done anything, that I had not stolen anything, that it was mine. I had simply switched to stubborn mode.

He said he was about to call the police, but if I gave him 50 marks, he would forget the whole thing. I could not jump over my own shadow. I had already claimed I had not stolen it, and I could not bring myself to admit that I had. And 50 marks seemed like a lot of money. So I gave him nothing, and he called the police.

When they arrived, they treated me as if I were a dangerous criminal. They stood me against the wall and patted me down. Then they made me empty all my pockets, and they found the adapter and also a small bag of weed. That was so stupid of me. They took my statement, and I felt miserable.

A few weeks later I went to the hearing, testified, and admitted that I had stolen it because I had little money and that I would not do it again. The prosecutor let me off. I got a letter saying I was acquitted, as an exception, including for the small drug offense.

A few years later I started again, in emergencies I had cobbled together for myself, stealing from shops and supermarkets wherever I could. I made a sport of it. I constantly looked for the gaps in the system: where a checkout has a blind spot, and how to talk my way out if I got caught. From then on I was almost never caught. And I could not stop.

It felt like a compulsion that gave me good feelings, and that was the worst part. I laughed spitefully when I got away with something. I felt like a superhero when I told people what I had stolen, how easy it had been and how clever I had been. Clever stealing became a sport I could not quit. In certain years I could hardly go into a supermarket without thinking about taking at least something.

I kept devising more refined techniques. If the cashier was not looking, I would put an item from my cart into the cart to the right of his register so he thought he had already scanned it. At some registers he could not see whether I still had something in the cart, so I left a few things in the cart instead of putting them on the belt. He often did not notice. If he had caught me, I would have said I had forgotten to put them on the belt.

Telling it all now, I can hear how sick it sounds. But I could not stop, especially because it felt so good. It felt only good. I had the feeling I was not harming anyone, and as long as I harm no one, I can give myself good feelings and save money on top of it. That was my philosophy.

Then, a year and a half ago, something interesting happened.

I should say that this was my shoplifting career: roughly 20 years, from about age 20 until I was 44. I should also say that I never had a clever hand with money. Money always disappeared from my pockets and my account. Everything I invested in, whether stocks, cryptocurrencies, projects or people, the money vanished into nowhere. I really never had a lucky hand with money or investments. I always had bad luck. I lost €20,000 in stocks in a single day. When I was in my mid-20s I borrowed about €50,000 from my father and lost most of it in stocks. And I saw no connection between my bad luck with money and my way of being a crook. Where would the connection even be? There is none, is there? You cannot prove it.

Then I got a text message offering a chance at quick money. Someone wrote to me on WhatsApp that I could do a trial training, and that I could earn €200 a day and more afterward. For the trial training I would get 100 dollars. I had already received many offers like this by text, and all of them wanted money from me. This was the first that actually offered me money, paid directly.

I thought it could be a real opportunity for me, my partner and her friends, if it was true that we could all earn easy, quick money with our phones. It was about writing reviews on marketplaces. I thought it sounded like a good idea, but I was skeptical too. Of course I was. I did not know the person writing to me. But when I said I was interested, my contact was passed on to headquarters. Headquarters got in touch and introduced me to another employee, who would train me.

The training happened over WhatsApp. They explained what I should do, which website to go to and where to click. Then I saw that I earned money with every click. At first only a few cents, but the more I clicked, the more I earned. At a certain point I could pay the money out. I was told to set up a crypto wallet. I said I wanted nothing to do with crypto, that it was surely a scam. But the money tempted me too much, and I thought I had nothing to lose, since I was the one receiving money. So I set up a wallet and got a transfer of 100 dollars for the training.

I thought this had to be a real thing, because they were actually giving me money. I was very happy that I could earn money so easily with a few clicks, and I said I was interested in continuing. Then I was invited to a WhatsApp group of about 40 members from all over the world. They talked about how much money they had made and exchanged stories. I tried to make contact with a few of them and ask about their experiences. I was still skeptical about the whole thing. But I had earned money, and there were 40 other people earning money, so I thought I was in good company.

The next day I started work, doing clicks and writing reviews. Then I hit some kind of special review, a special task, where I first had to deposit money before I could continue and get paid out. They explained that I had to deposit money for a short time to unlock it. Because I wanted the quick money, I did it. First it was 100 euros, then 300, and the next day I got it paid out again. So I felt really safe depositing money there.

Then I moved up into somewhat higher tiers. I climbed through levels and kept depositing money over the next days, and kept getting it back. But now the amounts got bigger and bigger. Suddenly I was supposed to deposit not €300 but €1,000, for which I could have had €1,800 paid out. It made total sense to me to put in €1,000 briefly to withdraw €1,800. I did that for several days to climb further.

Then came the day I was suddenly supposed to top up €3,000, and I did. Before I could withdraw, I ran into another odd task where I had to deposit money again. This time it was another €4,000, for which I would have earned €12,000. I already had a very bad feeling about putting in that much, but I had been able to withdraw the money every day so far. So I did it and put in another €4,000. Now the platform had €7,000 of mine, and I thought I would be able to withdraw it in the next few minutes.

Then, for the third time, I hit one of those special tasks where I was supposed to put in another €4,000 or €5,000. But I already had €7,000 in there. Now I was stuck. I could not withdraw my money unless I paid in more. So I paid in more. By the end I had about €13,000 in there, and I thought I could really withdraw my money now. Just before I could, I hit another special task and was supposed to deposit a few thousand more, another €6,000 or so.

It escalated completely, and I panicked. I had so much money in there, I could not get it out, and they demanded even more. I started reaching out to the group and the company, trying to talk to people about what they had experienced. I wanted some credibility in order to decide whether to put in more.

Then someone from the group called me and told me how well it had been working for him for about nine months, how much money he earned, that he could finally afford this and that, that life with his family was better now. That calmed me. He was one of the active ones who had been in the group longer. Another new user had been hired at the same time as me, and I wrote to him too and asked how it was going. He wrote back that it was going well and that he was glad he had found it. He sent me screenshots of how much he had earned and withdrawn.

That was really hard for me, because could I believe all of it or not? It all seemed very credible. So many different people had interacted with me: first the woman from HR, then headquarters, then the employee who onboarded and trained me, then the person hired alongside me, then the 40 people in the group who wrote daily, and the person I spoke to on the phone. That was an incredible number of points that gave it credibility, even though my gut kept saying the whole time that this was a huge scam. And I really did want to transfer the €6,000. I can imagine that whoever reads this is thinking, "Don't! This is total madness!"

I was lucky that a friend was visiting me at that time, and I told him the story. I felt awful. I was ashamed that I had done this, that I was in a situation where I had already put in so much money and had no chance, but still wanted my money back. My friend said I had to say goodbye to the money. Then he started researching the internet for what there was on this website and on similar cases of fraud.

He came across articles describing how nowadays entire WhatsApp groups are built with artificial intelligence, where it looks like many different people with many different phone numbers, but it is all run by an AI or by a single person. Only then did it dawn on me. I had not even considered the possibility that those 40 people could all be one person, with all those different phone numbers from all over the world. I accepted that it was most likely a scam, that it was all one person pretending to be many. I had to say goodbye to that money.

It traumatized me deeply. For days and weeks I could not look at my WhatsApp app or open it, and I completely distrusted every message that came in through WhatsApp. I had trusted, and my trust had been betrayed so badly that afterward I had nervous breakdowns. I could not sleep. I had panic and anxiety attacks and enormous shame over what had happened, because I had trusted a fraudster. I felt a strong sense of lack over the lost money, huge feelings of revenge, and helplessness because I could not do anything.

I called the police. They made it fairly clear that I could file a report, but that there was probably nothing to be done, since it all ran through crypto and crypto is anonymous. I was forced to face what had happened.

What shocked me most was that in some way I had to admire the guy who had tricked me. I had built so much security into myself. For many years I had easily fended off so many attempted scams, which simply were not clever enough to get me. Now I had fallen for one, and I asked myself how this could have happened to me.

I saw that I had wanted quick money out of a deep sense of lack, and that it had lured me enormously. I had also learned that from my father, who fell for many fraudsters who promised him higher earnings. Thinking about it now, I realize my father had exactly the same sickness as I did: wanting quick money and being gullible in a certain way. I was much more skeptical than my father, who gave people money on the strength of trust alone, because they seemed trustworthy, with no security and no contracts, and never saw it again. His whole life. We are surely talking about €200,000 over 30 years, to ten different people or investments.

It is the same with me. I invested in platforms that promised me quick money, pyramid schemes and so on, ways to make money. And I always lost everything. My father always lost everything. Can you see a connection between father and son? There is no proof, of course.

I thought for a long time about the guy who cheated me. And not only him. I had the feeling that the universe knew how to get me. It managed to get past my skeptical gut feeling, which I had the whole time, and past that deep knowing that I was being cheated, and still get me to transfer money, and more and more of it. The universe got past all my safeguards, my skepticism and my cleverness. I had to admit the guy was smarter than me. That was hard to admit, but I had to, because he had totally pulled the wool over my eyes. He had won my trust and really taken me for a ride.

The shocking part was that I hated this guy, and I also admired him. I could hardly bear that conflict in myself. He traumatized me badly. My nervous system was a bundle of nerves. For days and weeks I could hardly think of anything else.

At the same time I thought about this man and was honest with myself, and I found a part in me that wanted to be like him. That wanted his brilliant system, wanted to copy it and go out and cheat other people, because it had worked so well on me. I celebrated him so much, and it seemed absurd, because at the same moment I could feel how it is to be on the other side, the one who is cheated. It was almost unbearable, and hard to admit to myself.

That is where a transformation began in me. I started to see a connection: I could only be cheated that well by someone who is like me. A part of me is inwardly exactly like this guy. If that part had had the chance to think up such a system, it would have done it. And I realized in that moment that as long as this part lives in me, I will keep running into fraudsters. And those fraudsters will manage to cheat me in the future too. My cleverness and skepticism will not protect me, because this one really got to me and to my hard-earned money.

!gold As long as this part lives in me, I will keep running into fraudsters.

When I realized I was not invulnerable and not smarter than everyone else, I began to talk and negotiate with this part.

I had learned Miracle Work, the therapy method that makes emotional healing possible without needing time, and with it I was able to let this part go in peace, to dissolve it. That was very, very hard, but I managed, in several ways. To be a bit more transparent about what I did: in my mind, I let this part cheat everyone in the world, as much as it wanted, and then I asked it whether there was anything left to cheat. When it saw that there was no one left, it calmed down. That was one element I used.

I spent many hours working on myself with different therapeutic tools, with one clear, simple goal: never again to think about stealing when I am in a supermarket. There was a time in my life when that thought came up every time and I could not stop it. That was my goal. My goal was not just to stop stealing. My goal was to stop thinking about stealing.

It has been at least a year now since I last thought about taking something from a supermarket. It did not even occur to me until my partner asked me how I was doing with it.

My partner had her own story of suffering with me. She saw what I did. When I first met her, I initiated her into the secrets and tricks of thievery. We were a bit like Bonnie and Clyde and cheered each other on, until at some point she realized it was not a good idea and that what I was doing was hitting back at my life. She recognized the signs: all the setbacks, failures, bad investments and things that happened in my life and our life. She traced them back to the fact that we were crooks. So she stopped on her own and asked me to stop too. And I could not. It was not possible.

I had to do it behind her back, with a guilty conscience, like an addict. I tried to stop. Then I told myself I would stop doing it behind her back, that I wanted to be honest with her. So every time I did it, I had to confess. I had to face the part of me responsible and be radically honest with myself, and confront that crook inside. Only then did the thoughts about having to steal stop.

I had not wanted to accept that there could be a connection between inner parts and outer experience in life. But then I had to be fully honest and take responsibility for having been cheated. I could easily have shifted the blame onto the stupid fraudster and given him all of it. But I was involved. A part of me revered this fraudster, and that opened my eyes. Being that honest with yourself takes real courage. But by then I had already learned that it is worth being that honest with yourself.

Where do I stand now? Maybe someone reading this will ask.

I can proudly say that I no longer think about stealing in shops what I would like to buy but cannot afford. I just leave it on the shelf, and no thought comes that I could take it. The possibility no longer exists in my mind. It is not an attractive strategy anymore.

Do I pay all the taxes I am supposed to pay? Probably not. Do I use gray areas as far as possible? Definitely. There are still gaps in me where a little crook sees a chance to earn something from an insurance company. Sometimes I do it and sometimes I do not. So I am still working on it. I feel I have freed myself from my crook by 80 or 90 percent, and I am in the process of letting go of the last 10 percent too. But what could be my motivation for that? Why? Maybe I have to be cheated again, or lose money again, to find the motivation for the rest.

It is deeply human to talk about it like this. It is a kind of hero story that is not one, but describes a deeply human experience.

I can say that I am sorry for all the people I lied to and stole from, early in my life, and that I am no longer that person. I am glad about that.

So this is only a progress report on a healing that has largely happened and is still continuing. I wish this story ended with a happy ending. Maybe it is one, maybe not. I will leave that to the reader.