The gypsies near my area that I mentioned earlier are involved in all sorts of criminal enterprises other than shoddy contracting...
As far as the contracting goes, they once scammed an entire town by "fixing" the courthouse's leaky antique copper roof. The fix worked for a while and it seemed that they had done a marvelous job. Until quite a time later...the cielings started leaking everywhere.
What the gypsies had done was place a bunch of plastic buckets in the "attic" part of the courthouse to catch the water. And then made off like a bandit with the payment.
Other criminal activities...
They produce counterfeit money. Then they'll get the bills changed into coins and then drop the coins into the fuel tanks of their vehicles and recover the money later. They'll typically get stopped by the police because whoever changed the money for them got a good description. And then the cops let them go because, viola, there is no money on their persons or in the cab of the vehicle.
Vehicle scams...when it's time to get a new vehicle, Some of them will distract the salesman and the other(s) will take a fork or pocketknife and scratch up the paint on a new car and browbeat the salesman into giving them a discount due to the damage. When it's time to get rid of the old one, they burn it on a remote road and collect the insurance money.
Latest one I've heard about...they'll unhook your fuel lines running from your fuel pump while you are away from your vehicle...when your vehicle won't start, a very helpful "bystander" will appear and get your car running after a bit of tinkering here and there. And then once it's "fixed" the rest of them will crowd in on you in and try to intimidate you into paying the "bystander" for his help...
They tend to shy away from violent crimes (due to armed citizens and police) and tend to go for the devious, especially jobs that you won't realize are scams until they are long gone with your money. However, you can get a rise out of them by taking pictures of their enclave or taking a gander through binoculars, they'll try to tail you when you leave. Matter of fact, if I had some money and nothing better to do, I'd have a workvan set up as the prototypical "surveillance van" and spend all my time messing with paranoid folks like them...
