French crook busted by selfie

ROCHEFORT: A thief who stole a smartphone in France decided the best thing to do with his newly acquired toy was to take a series of selfies -- not realising the photos were being uploaded directly to the victim's computer.

The 22-year-old was quickly apprehended after inadvertently identifying himself to the victim, who went straight to the police with the incriminating evidence.

The thief was a repeat offender and was already serving several suspended jail sentences, said authorities in Rochefort, eastern France.

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He was sent down for a total of 31 months in prison on Wednesday.

In a similar incident on June 28, a man suspected of decapitating his boss in an attack on a gas factory in France confessed to the grisly crime after it emerged the married father-of-three sent a gruesome selfie photo of himself and the severed head to a WhatsApp number in Canada.

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Later, he rammed his van into the US-owned Air Products factory near France’s second city of Lyon in what President Francois Hollande said was a “terrorist” attack designed to blow up the whole building.

Yassin Salhi was overpowered by a firefighter as he was trying to prise open a bottle of acetone in an apparent suicidal bid to destroy the factory.