{"id":6206,"date":"2014-02-09T14:31:18","date_gmt":"2014-02-09T14:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/?p=6206"},"modified":"2025-08-20T21:29:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T21:29:54","slug":"police-report-romeo-and-juliet-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/police-report-romeo-and-juliet-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"Police report: Romeo and Juliet scam"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Police report of “Romeo and Juliet” Confidence Scam<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Location of crime:<\/strong>\u00a0 Upstairs Foyer, Greenwood Theatre, Guy’s Campus, King’s College London.
\nDate of crime:<\/strong>\u00a0 Evenings of 5th, 6th, 7th\u00a0February 2014.\u00a0 The crime may also have been “rehearsed” before these dates on unwitting spectators.
\nFinancial sponsors:<\/strong>\u00a0 A group calling itself King’s College London English Literary Society.
\nNature of crime:<\/strong>\u00a0 Deconstruction of playwright’s text without single reference to post-colonial or feminist perspectives.\u00a0\u00a0 Co-conspirator “The Friar” tore out pages of “Romeo and Juliet” text to manifest true nature of crime.
\nKey victims:<\/strong>\u00a0 William Shakespeare, women<\/a>.
\nPerpetrator:<\/strong>\u00a0 Unknown.\u00a0\u00a0 Calls himself “The Director”.\u00a0\u00a0 Identity: Elusive.\u00a0 Real identity unknown.\u00a0\u00a0May use pseudonyms: W. Nash, Rookie Monster, DPR, Edward Snowden.
\nKnown Co-conspirators:\u00a0<\/strong> Marcus “The Friar” Bazley<\/a>, Hillary “The Counsellor” Chua, Laura “Juliet” Deering, Jackie “Lady Capulet” Edwards, Matthew “Romeo” Hodson.\u00a0 Others involved in supporting the scam thought to be:\u00a0 Catherine Walters, Elena Gillies, Emma Lawrence, Aja Garrod, Aggi Cantril, Sophie Omar, and Kate Gardener.\u00a0 Notes found at crime scene indicate others may also have assisted, almost certainly without realizing the consequences.
\nModus Operandi:<\/strong>\u00a0 Perp takes out-of-copyright play text, reducing number of characters, even using unwitting mark in audience to play role in deception.\u00a0 Play cut down and cut up, and done as crime scene investigation, with scenes “reconstructed” by “actors”.\u00a0 Legal counsel present to narrate events and give illusion of objectivity.
\nPerp uses intelligence and wit to produce amusing, clever, and sophisticated version of play, which is used as a “script” that is then executed (“performed”) by co-conspirators in front of marks.\u00a0\u00a0 Performance of script of professional standard, and very realistic.\u00a0 Thus, marks easily deceived and soon suspend disbelief.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

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Only one of the known co-conspirators is believed to actually make his living in theatre.\u00a0 Remaining co-conspirators possibly being groomed.<\/p>\n

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Co-conspirators take on “roles” to execute script.\u00a0 Thus, “The Friar” is a Cockney ex-junkie offering life advice to the other conspirators, along with marriage ceremonies and store-and-forward messaging services;\u00a0\u00a0 “Romeo” is a lovestruck young man, writing dreamily in his Moleskine; “Lady Capulet” is a tyrant of the household interior, a dictator of the domestic. \u00a0The different “roles” cleverly interleave, and jointly enable confidence scam.\u00a0\u00a0Indeed, witnesses report that the acting was so intense that it approached the threshold of caricature, but\u00a0without ever crossing\u00a0 that threshold,\u00a0 making the performances thrilling to watch.\u00a0 Co-conspirators all appear to be under direct influence of Perp.<\/p>\n

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Co-conspirators use a variety of names, including real names, to confuse audience about when co-conspirators are “acting” in their “roles”, and when not.\u00a0\u00a0 Humour and wit used to distract attention of audience from reconstruction\u00a0of double suicide, following madness of young love, set amongst inter-gang warfare in inner-city Italy.<\/p>\n

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Toying with nature of “acting” indicates this is crime of real sophistication by people with extensive experience in deception and illusion.\u00a0\u00a0 Perp and co-conspirators may have worked in Elizabethan theatre before.\u00a0 Crime shows many hallmarks of two known literary deceivers and wits with Elizabethan previous, Thomas Nashe and Kit Marlowe.\u00a0 Neither likely involved:\u00a0 Nashe believed deceased, Marlowe either deceased (Deptford Regional Office view) or living in exile in Italy.<\/p>\n

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Production involves post-coitus scene, drugs, violence, suicide, and death.\u00a0 No rock and roll, but.\u00a0\u00a0 One person injured by vicious slap.\u00a0\u00a0 Music deployed very effectively to “set the scene” and relax audience in preparation for confidence scam, and at various times during the operation to manipulate emotions of marks.<\/p>\n

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Use of Barber’s Adagio for Strings<\/em> obviously intended as subtle allusion to FDR’s funeral and Oliver Stone’s film about Vietnam.\u00a0 This double allusion should allay concerns of English Department about absence of references to post-colonial oppression and the wickedness of US global hegemony, as well as providing a warm glow of self-satisfaction to the one person who caught the allusions.<\/p>\n

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Related scams:<\/strong>\u00a0 West Side Story<\/em>, High School Musical<\/em>.
\nKnown beneficiaries of scam:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Perp and co-conspirators<\/li>\n
  2. KCL English Literary Society<\/li>\n
  3. Greenwood Theatre<\/li>\n
  4. King’s College London<\/li>\n
  5. The Horseshoe Inn, Melior Street, London<\/li>\n
  6. The London theatre world<\/li>\n
  7. The audience.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Progress of investigation:\u00a0<\/strong> Police seeking the 132 witnesses to garner further information.
    \nPublic warning:<\/strong>\u00a0 These people are armed with professional acting skills and are very dangerous.\u00a0\u00a0 Perp may be serial dramaturge, intent on career in intelligent theatre or deception.\u00a0 Co-conspirators capable of superb acting at the highest level.
    \nDeptford Regional Office reports rumour that next confidence scam may\u00a0take place\u00a0in Copenhagen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    <\/blockquote>\n

    Conspirators also believed to hold raucous after-play parties to celebrate success of scam, involving alcohol, tobacco, witty conversation, and profound arguments about the existence of God and the nature of relationships.\u00a0 Kit Marlowe would feel at home.\u00a0 US State Department Advisory: \u00a0Americans visiting London particularly at risk.
    \nNote:\u00a0<\/strong> Potential side-effects of scam include theatrical reviews written as police-reports, pretentiously imitating style of the production itself.<\/p>\n

    <\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Police report of “Romeo and Juliet” Confidence Scam Location of crime:\u00a0 Upstairs Foyer, Greenwood Theatre, Guy’s Campus, King’s College London. Date of crime:\u00a0 Evenings of 5th, 6th, 7th\u00a0February 2014.\u00a0 The crime may also have been “rehearsed” before these dates on unwitting spectators. Financial sponsors:\u00a0 A group calling itself King’s College London English Literary Society. Nature […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,72,75,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-reviews","category-shakespeare","category-theatre-and-drama","p1","y2014","m02","d09","h14"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6206"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14019,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6206\/revisions\/14019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}