Is that an avocado in your pocket...

I have to admit, every time I write a story like this one, I worry that some misguided soul will attempt to commit the crime I describe, but without the part where the perpetrator gets tossed in the clink.

So I will preface this by saying, you'll never away with it, Dillinger, Jr.

Here's the story: a man (isn't it always!) in Israel robbed two banks of more than £6,500 ($8093.54 in American money). His M.O, as Joe Friday would say, was unique: he held out an avocado that he had dressed up to look like a hand grenade.

Unlike Joe Friday in the "Dragnet" era, police have another crime-busting weapon these days: they tracked him down using cell phone data.

The man is 47, and not particularly inclined to do great art. Both times, all he did was paint an avocado black and TELL the cashiers it was a grenade.

You can't fool too many people with a black avocado, but it did work twice, first at a bank in the southern city of Beersheba, and later at another cash house where he told the cashier to “put the money in the bag quickly or I’ll throw this grenade.”

Yeahhhhhh, see?  Hand over the loot and nobody gets hurt, see?

I wonder if they have Turner Classic Movies in Israel. Clearly, the man has seen too many George Raft movies.

Speaking of the movies, security video in both incidents showed him wearing a hat that tried to cover his face, with sunglasses, and in one of the heists, an eye patch.

The arrestee already has prior arrests in his past, and one three-year prison term for robbery.

It would have been easier for him to get away with it if he had just eaten the grenade  avocado, but not even crooks like the taste of avocados.