Charity launches scheme to help ‘exploited burglars’

A new fair-trade scheme has been launched to help burglars and muggers earn a greater share of their labours.

Members of the stolen-goods-buying public were urged yesterday to get behind ‘FairCop’, a scheme to help those at the bottom of criminal society profit from their work. ‘Did you know that for every ten pounds paid for a stolen mobile, only 50p goes to the bloke who originally nicked it?’ said Jane MacDougal, director of the FairCop Foundation. ‘By the time the fence has taken his cut, the police informer bribed and the sinister gangster overlord paid off, your honest thief is hardly making enough to fund his crack habit.’

The Foundation buys hot goods directly from the procurer for a guaranteed minimum price, before branding them with the coveted ‘FairCop’ logo and flogging them on eBay. In time, the Foundation hopes to launder their wares through a chain of pubs across the country. ‘Only meet people in the car park where you see the FairCop sign’ said Ms MacDougal.

Any profit made is ploughed into helping the criminals themselves, including research into the difficult subject of ‘how not to get caught next time’, and a common bail fund for the chattel farmers. ‘It’s about building sustainable underworld communities’ continued the director. ‘We look after everyone in the chain – we even have a victim support fund. Should you buy a faulty SatNav from us, we send the supplier straight back out there to get you another. You can even tell us where you saw one you liked the look of.’

However, reports are coming in that just a few days into its existence, the FairCop logo has already been illegally copied onto a consignment of knocked-off mp3 players that fell off the back of a lorry somewhere on the Beijing-Nanking freeway. ‘There’s some real crooks out there and the public should be vigilant,’ concluded Ms MacDougal. The rest of the press conference could not be heard after her microphone went missing.