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Google in Colorado safe cracking caper

The $12,000 web search

It's true. Google can help with anything. Minutes before they opened several locked safes at a "family fun center" in Colorado Springs, a team of masked bandits sat down at a nearby PC and Googled "safe-cracking." "They brought up a site called 'How to Open Safes,'" Colorado Springs detective Chuck Ackerman told The Register.

The bumbling burglars needed all the help they could get.

After breaking into the Bigg City amusement center on Colorado Spring's Mark Dabbling Boulevard, they attempted to blackout a security camera using a can of WD-40 - a less-than-effective method.

"Yes, they sprayed the camera with WD-40," says Ackerman. "All that did was clean off the lenses." They also sprayed a fire alarm, thinking it was a camera, reports Denver's ABC 7 News.

As the camera - not the fire alarm - looked on, the black-clad bandits struggled for more than hour to open the Bigg City safes. Apparently, they had the combinations, but didn't know how to use them.

Then one of the burglars walked into an office next door and did a Google search. Ackerman and the Colorado Springs police department have yet to determine exactly what the burglars learned from the web, but whatever they learned, it helped. They soon had the safes open - and made off with $12,000.®

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