Armed with a gun, a man in a Santa outfit held up a furniture store in the German town of Ludwigshafen Saturday and forced two cashiers to open the safe. He filled his sack with cash, locked the two women in the safe and escaped.
He is still on the loose, but police in Tuebingen were able to nab a bank robber armed with a machine gun in a Santa costume with the aid of an infrared camera and helicopter. They found him hiding in a ditch in a nearby forest.
this one is my favorite
One Santa was stopped by police for driving 150 kph (90 mph) on a northern German motorway, 50 kph over the speed limit.
"He said he was in a rush because he still had packages to deliver," said a spokesman for the police. They gave Santa a fine and took away his license.
Last week an inebriated half-naked Santa disrupted a Christmas market in Dabringhausen before police intervened.
That incident paled in comparison to what happened in Auckland Saturday when 40 drunken Santas rampaged through the city center, stealing from stores and assaulting security guards in a protest against Christmas becoming too commercial.
In Britain, police said they were looking for a Santa acting suspiciously -- a flasher who exposed himself to women.
Officers in Swanage on the south coast of England said the flasher had struck a number of times since December 6, and a week later exposed himself whilst wearing a Santa Claus outfit.
A British agency recently issued a code of conduct to root out substandard Santas. "Santa is a magical and cuddly man, not a fat, smelly slob," said James Lovell of the Ministry of Fun agency in London. "He must not smell of drink or body odor."
