Random Places That Are Surprisingly Easy to Sneak Into (16 items)

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  (#11) Zoos

  Zoos and animal preserves are surprisingly easy to break into, and it happens on a regular basis. Large areas, scant staff at night, and a lack of funding for security measures are contributing factors. So is poaching in Africa. But in one case in Boise, Idaho, two people broke into a zoo seemingly for the explicit purpose of killing a monkey.

  The two black-clad men escaped, and zoo staff found a dead patas monkey the next day. It had been killed by some kind of blunt-force trauma to the head. The exact motive for the break-in remains unknown; it's possible the men had something else planned, ran into the monkey by accident, and fled after killing it.
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  (#15) The Pentagon's Mainframe

  You've seen this one so often in "hacker" movies it's almost become a trope. But it really has happened, and probably far more often than anyone would like to admit. The most high-profile case of Pentagon hacking came in 1983, back when computers were made of matchsticks and hamster wheels. Hacker Kevin Mitnick was arrested by the FBI for illegally accessing the Pentagon's computers that year, and not for the first or last time. He had previously, and has since, broken into the FBI itself. He now runs cyber security firm Mitnick Security.
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  (#7) Scottish Castles

  Castles are designed to be invasions-proof - that is kind of the point of them, right? Sure, we have all kinds of modern weapons that could level any sort of fortification now, but certainly a castle would be the ideal location to protect valuable works of art against guys with an axe. Yeah, you'd think. But in 2003, Drumlangrig Castle in Scotland was broken into by four gentlemen wielding weapons that dated back to earlier than the castle itself. They stole several precious works of art, including a da Vinci masterpiece entitled "Madonna of Yarnwinder." Valued at about $40 million, it was eventually recovered by the rightful owners.
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  (#2) Buckingham Palace

  • Neoclassicism

  Back in 1982, Queen Elizabeth awoke from a nap to find what appeared to be a drunken homeless man standing by her bedside, dripping blood on the carpet. The fellow's name was Michael Fagan, and he had (for the second time that week) climbed a drainpipe and entered the Palace through an unlocked window. The blood was from an ashtray he'd cut himself on while stealing a $6 bottle of wine from the Queen's stash. Afterward, he meandered into her bedroom and chatted with her for about 10 minutes until a maid found them. Fagan wasn't charged with any crime aside from stealing a bottle of wine, since it had never occurred to anyone to make breaking into Buckingham Palace illegal.
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  (#13) Prisons, ft. Snoopy and a Cat

  For a place designed to keep people in and modeled on the concept of a medieval fort, you'd think prisons would be pretty hard to break into. And certainly, most American supermax prisons are. Hey, with the largest prison population on Earth, we've got practice. England, though, seems to have a bit of a problem in this department.

  In one case, a man broke into a prison wearing a Snoopy costume, intending to snatch a prisoner and dance his way back out. Another Englishman broke into a prison to steal $13,000 in cigarettes from inmates. In Brazil, guards noticed a suspicious looking cat wandering around the grounds. Upon closer inspection, they realized the cat had been strapped with cell phones, files, knives, and other implements of malfeasance.
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  (#5) Trains

  You know that old cliche about vagabonds "riding the rails" from town to town? It's not just a convention of Victorian times - it still  happens, and for a pretty good reason. Modern freight trains are often over a mile long and slow down or stop completely near populated areas. Enough so that hitchhikers have enough time to scout those areas and hop on the next train headed out of town. Granted, they might have to spend the entire trip outside on the steel tie between cars, but hey, it beats paying for gas!

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