IRREVERENT News

NEW YORK - The "Golden Gang" today topped the Most Wanted list for a string of home robberies across the nation.

The so-called "Golden Gang," composed of high-paid bank executives, turned to crime earlier this year following their acceptance of government T.A.R.P. (Troubled Assets Relief Program) money. "They say taking this [TARP money] wasn't a gateway or anything," confessed one executive gang member known only as "Bill" to IRREVERENT. "But it wasn't as fun as the real thing. So a group of us got together at the club one day and decided that robbing people directly... was more honest and a lot more fun."

Starting in Manhatten, the gang quickly gained notoriety robbing neighbors, friends, and other executives in top-paying corporate positions. Netting tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time, the gang focused on cash, jewelry, and sometimes artwork stolen from New York's elite. When opportunities among the rich ran thin, the gang switched focus and began targetting middle and upper-middle class Americans in the five boroughs area, and then spread south and west.

"Make no mistake," said Special Agent Chet Bloomberg, the F.B.I.'s head profiler in the Elite Crimes Unit (ECU). "This gang has the resources and wherewithal to conduct petty crime on a massive scale. They got a taste for it among New York's wealthy, but this just whetted their appetite. You gotta understand that to these guys, stealing a million dollars from the government or a couple hundred dollars from a family in Queens is the same thing. Their sense of entitlement is virtually boundless. They think it's all their money anyway."

"It's not that we're bad guys," said "Bill." "We're just doing what comes naturally to us. And hey, you guys started it."