Back in the early 90s, I was working for a fairly large financial services company. We occupied 1 floor (or possibly 2) of an 11-story building. Although the elevators were located in the floor lobby, you still had to have a badge/fob to go from the lobby into our offices.

We had a rash of laptop thefts. I had purchased a DefCon lock and locked my laptop to my desk so I was never a victim. But, one of the guys in our group had his laptop stolen.

About a week later, that guy gets a phone call from a pawn shop, with the pawnbroker asking if he had recently had a laptop stolen. The pawnbroker was savvy enough to know that our company did not dispose of its property via pawn shops, so he had turned on the laptop and on the bootup screen, it had my buddy's name. So, of his own volition (most likely because he knew that the laptop was most likely stolen), the pawnbroker called our company and asked for my buddy.

The police were called, security tapes at the pawn shop were reviewed, and, sure enough, an employee who worked for our company (I'll call him "John") was clearly seen bringing in the laptop and pawning it for cash. That employee was subsequently fired, but no criminal charges were laid. (Mistake #1)

(The rumor mill churned up the tidbit that "John" had a gambling problem and had often boasted how he had won -- or lost -- this or that amount at the casinos, which had just recently opened in our city.)

About 2-3 years later, I was at an airport in another city, flying home and I saw "John" waiting for the same flight. At the time, I was traveling so much, it was not uncommon for me to run into acquaintances at airports. He and I talked a bit, catching up (awkwardly, I might add), and I asked where he was working. I was surprised when he told me he worked for a very large bank in our city.

I put 2 and 2 together and realized that the only way he could have been hired at a bank after being fired for theft was if our company had declined to press charges. The fact that he had been hired at a bank was Mistake #2.

About two years after that, I left that company for a different one. I was assigned to a particular project that used Lotus Notes (shudder ... sorry ... PTSD flashback) and I went to the kickoff meeting, only to come face-to-face with "John". Apparently, he no longer worked at the bank. Instead, he worked for our company, whose offices were spread across three different buildings. He was working at one of the smaller buildings, in some sort of lab environment, where there was space for hardware to be stored and staged before rollout to employees or clients.

Shortly after that meeting, I heard my manager talking about a delay in a project because two laptops had gone missing from that lab. I went to my manager and told her that I had some past experience with someone who worked in that lab, a person who had been fired for property theft. However, since I did not have first-hand knowledge, I was unwilling to point the finger at "John". I didn't want to gossip or spread slander.

Instead, I told her to suggest to the powers-that-be to put a video camera somewhere in that area.

Less than a week later, "John" was once again let go from the company without any criminal charges being applied. (Mistake #3, at the very least).

Not surprisingly, we didn't have any more equipment walking away after that.