[DemolitionRed]

Terrorism has become a tool for ordinary criminals.

On April 12, a bus carrying the team of the German soccer club Borussia Dortmund BVB was blasted by three bombs. Thankfully, only one player and one police officer suffered minor injuries. A letter purporting to be from ISIS was found at the scene.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/12/eu...osion-germany/

Police almost immediately suspected two Islamic extremists, but soon determined that they had nothing to do with the blast. Today, police arrested the (presumably) real perpetrator. And this is where the story gets weird.

http://time.com/4749967/borusiia-dor...-bus-bombing/…

The suspect was a Russian immigrant with no ties to Islam, but, it seems, with a penchant for get-rich-quick schemes, no conscience, and no common sense whatsoever. Immediately before the blast he bought 15,000 put options on the shares of the team (which are publicly traded). He wanted to kill or maim as many players as possible to create a sharp drop in the stock price, and reap a multi-million dollar payday.

Alas, he was quite incompetent (thankfully). For one, how did he think to not draw attention to such a massive transaction? The bank's anti-money-laundering system had flagged him, and police had kept him under observation starting pretty much ever since the original suspects were cleared.

He also placed the bombs wrong. Two smaller bombs went off as planned, but the third one was placed too high, and was so strong that it flew right over the bus. That probably saved many lives.

So it wasn't a terrorist, but a bungling petty criminal who wanted a big payday. If it hadn't almost cost many innocent people their lives, his incompetence would make a great slapstick comedy.