Tech & Biz

Virtual Furniture, Real Arrest: Habbo Burglary

by Jordan Yerman | November 14, 2007 at 08:08 am

621 views | 5 Recommendations | 2 comments

Dutch police have arrested an unnamed 17-year-old on suspicion of having swiped €4,000 worth of furniture from the virtual Habbo Hotel - the first such local arrest for "virtual burglary".

According to Expatica, police say the suspect "allegedly hacked the accounts of other Habbo community members", then "took their furniture and brought it to his own room". Four 15-year-olds were also quizzed about the break-in, and police say the suspects will be charged with "hacking and burglary".

It's interesting to me that this is considered "burglary" and not just hacking/information theft, since burglary suggests physical entry of a home. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, burglary is defined as ""entry into a building illegally with intent to commit theft, do bodily harm, or do damage". Like Firefox, this dictionary has tabs. Anyway, there we go: the presumption of physical entry. This case (at least int he realm of Dutch law) could redefine the nature of certain online crimes and trespasses.

Dutch police have made their first arrest of an online thief — a 17-year-old accused of stealing virtual furniture from rooms in the Habbo Hotel — a popular teenager networking website.

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liamssoft

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 16:11 on November 15th, 2007

jordan, nice one, a little strange but at least they hooked the thieves/hackers, most hackers are getting away with it.

www.xenu.org (not verified)

at 09:20 on August 1st, 2008

LOL. Someone got arrested for doing this. In America you could probably get away with this if you had a good lawyer.

However, its just stealing VIRTUAL furniture. Get a life people. I can't believe someone would go to these lengths to get VIRTUAL stuff, and after all that get caught.