Three Criminal Stories about Ink

Back in January of 2019, a couple from Tennessee entered into a Walmart at around 3 AM and left with 332 ink cartridges worth approximately over $11,000. They walked out through the garden center, and the couple jumped into the getaway car that was already waiting for them outside.

 Melbourne-based office supplies company, Corporate Office Supplies, prided themselves on their “direct marketing” talents that landed them large revenues. In one of the company’s social media posts, The CEO of the company congratulated his team on “hitting 250k in one morning”. In another update, he praised an account manager for closing a sale of $43,000. 

In March 2017, the company was ordered by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to pay back a farming family $90,000 after pressuring them to buy over 2000 ink cartridges. Corporate Office Supplies would constantly call the family, demanding that they buy ink cartridges for their home printer. One ink cartridge for the printer would last 10 months, and eventually, the family had bought enough cartridges to last them 1700 years. Corporate Office Supplies would call and harass the family to collect the $80,000 debt, but eventually, the law stepped in. As of August 2019, finding any trace of the company is hard.

However, the most thought out, and outrageous ink cartridge crime had to be the one committed by 64-year-old Richard Rimbaugh and his team of ink thieves. Rimbaugh and his team were charged with enterprise corruption, money laundering, and criminal possession of stolen goods due to their extensive ink stealing business, called “American Media Soft”. For 20 years, his teams would rob big box stores of their ink cartridges and then sell their stolen loot through sites like Amazon and Ebay. Devices were used to deactivate security alarms, such as special vests worn by the thief, that would allow them to carry stolen goods through alarms without activating them. While they were suspected of stealing over $12 million in ink and computer software, the government was only able to recover $7.7 million. Rimbaugh and his team were convicted and are currently serving their sentences.