Realistic masks fool witnesses and police

[Veho]

"Suspect is an African-American male, mid-thirties, black hair." Or is he? Another suspect is a "Caucasian male, sixties-seventies, gray hair." OLRY? Another suspect yet is an "elderly Caucasian male, and not by any means a young Asian man."

Or maybe not.

Mission: Impposible time:

A white bank robber in Ohio recently used a "hyper-realistic" mask manufactured by a small Van Nuys company to disguise himself as a black man, prompting police there to mistakenly arrest an African American man for the crimes. In October, a 20-year-old Chinese man who wanted asylum in Canada used one of the same company's masks to transform himself into an elderly white man and slip past airport security in Hong Kong. Authorities are even starting to think that the so-called Geezer Bandit, a Southern California bank robber believed for months to be an old man, might actually be a younger guy wearing one of the disguises made by SPFXMasks.

[...]

Conrad Zdzierak, a 30-year-old Polish immigrant, used one of Slusser's masks to disguise himself as a black man during a series of Ohio robberies last spring. The costume was so good that six of seven bank tellers wrongly identified an African American man as the culprit in a photo lineup, said Det. Keenan Riordan, who investigated the case for the Springdale, Ohio, Police Department.

"We showed the picture to his own mother, and she thought it was him," Riordan said.

[...]

Slusser opened SPFXMasks in 2003. His six-person crew uses silicone that looks and feels like flesh, down to the pores. Each strand of hair — and it's human hair — is sewn on individually. Artists methodically paint the masks to create realistic skin tones. "I wanted to make something that looks so real that when you go out for Halloween no one can tell," Slusser said. "It's like 'Mission: Impossible' — you pull it over your head one time and that's it. It's like a 10-hour makeup job in 10 seconds." He experimented until he found the right recipe for silicone that would seem like skin. A key discovery was that if the inside of the mask is smooth — even if the outside is bumpy with pores, a nose and other features — it will stretch over most faces and move with facial muscles.

Impressive.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'll be in the Temper Pics thread

PS: another interesting crime from the same article:

QUOTEThe use of lifelike masks to commit crimes is just the latest example of crooks adopting new technology, Foxworth said. In one New York case last year, thieves stole a car with a GPS device and used the navigation system to find the victim's home, where they stole a second car.

 

[Omega_2]

haha, I remember these, the one that went to Candaia was funny, why Canada? Most seeking asylum go to the US. There's not a whole lot up north last I checked XD

Although, these masks would have use for anyone in, say, a politician spoof ad, mainly to get those idiotic mudslinging campaigns taken off the air, and everyone has a nice peaceful election year for a change

and of course, a Clinton mask for the random amounts of women to deny having slept with