Thieving culture of macaques: theft of smartphones followed by extortion of fruit and long bargaining with the victim (6 photos)

We and other primates are very similar, but our set of things necessary for life has grown a little over the past few thousand years. Where a person needs a tourist backpack filled with objects, the smaller brothers are content with sticks and stones. But something in this scheme went wrong, and urban monkeys in Asia took the path of stealing expensive gadgets. But why?





What cool glasses, let me try them on, I’ll return them right away.

I’ll say right away that the animals are not hooked on social networks and are not preparing a full-scale uprising. For them, our technology still has no value. A strange stone from which light and sound come. Cool, but useless. However, people are very concerned about this thing. This is exactly what the cunning primates noticed and began to use insidiously!



The same classmate who decided to joke and hide your briefcase.

A little context: macaques living in cities began to steal. There are no fruit trees or scatterings of fruit here, just noise, din and a lot of concrete. Rumbling stomachs drive primates to raid landfills, raid grocery stores, and beg. But one day the macaques figured out that ordinary extortion works much more effectively!





To return an item, insert a banana into the banana slot.

Monkeys don’t grab anything, they already know which things are not worth even one banana, and for which a panicked visitor will throw away a box of fruit. Therefore, inattentive tourists lose their smartphones, cameras, and laptops. The thieves handle the loot with care: they know that if they damage a valuable item, there will be no ransom.



Show me the fruit first!

And then the natural bidding begins. The more expensive the stolen item, the more expensive the primate values the ransom and the longer it will take to decide whether to give the gadget back or not. The longest “negotiations” lasted half an hour.



- Now give me the phone! - Which telephone? I don't remember any phone number. – Maybe this will refresh your memory? - Oh yes, the telephone. I remember something like this...

And it works! So successful that monkey crime has been growing at an accelerated pace from Bali to Indonesia and India for 30 years. Macaques pass on their knowledge of valuable tchotchkes through generations, teaching their cubs a competent racket. Crime literally runs in the blood of monkeys!



Everything only got worse during the quarantines - the starving macaques without people became truly brutal and started robbing the victims...

States are seriously thinking about what to do with macaques. It somehow didn’t work out with police monkeys (there was such a thing), it makes no sense to put animals in prison. In Thailand, furry gopniks have begun to be sterilized. In Bali, they decided to prepare tourists with the help of instructions. But so far no serious measures have been taken, the macaques live by robbery and robbery!