A package with a surprise, or Taking someone else's is sinful and ridiculous

It turns out that parcel theft is an international phenomenon, and mail thieves suffer even in relatively prosperous America. A former design engineer from NASA, having lost his property several times, decided to teach the thieves a lesson, and he did it as inventively as possible.

Source: CNBC

"Don't sin anymore, or I'll tear your hands out by the roots" — this is how Ostap Bender instructed one of his thieving companions in the novel "The Golden Calf". There are many cases when angry victims of postal thieves mined parcels and stuffed parcels with toxic substances, mutilating and even killing kidnappers and completely random people.

A NASA employee decided to punish his abusers in a less dangerous, more fun and quite legitimate way. Not afraid of expenses and hassle, the engineer created a device that not only tracks the kidnappers, but also has a gentle educational effect on them.

The device, which the inventor called a "smart bomb with sparkles", was based on an Apple speaker box, which is quite attractive to kidnappers. Inside, the man placed a cunning mechanism that scatters glitter, a GPS navigation module, a stinky spray from a joke store and several smartphones that act as cameras and data transmitters at the same time.

The device, when removing the lid, arranged a holiday for the thief, showering him and everything around with the smallest multicolored sequins. Immediately after the multicolored extravaganza, an aerosol was triggered, showering the crook with an unbearable stench. Of course, all this is recorded by smartphone cameras and they are also poured into the "cloud", along with geolocation data, revealing the location of the criminal.

The work took a lot of time — almost six months passed from the idea to the first test. But months of labor were not spent in vain — the thieves' reaction to the video in which the "smart bomb with sparkles" works is worth every minute of the time spent. The first real unpacking of the "surprise" can be seen in the video at 5.40.

It becomes even funnier from the fact that the parcel indicates that it was sent by the hero of the beloved movie "Home Alone" by Kevin McCallister to his abusers — thieves Harry and Marv.