Sting Operations in Popular Culture
The term "sting" was popularized by the 1973 Robert Redford and Paul Newman movie The Sting, although the film is not about a police operation: it features two grifters and their attempts to con a mob boss out of a large sum of money.
- In 1998, three agencies joined forces to conduct a sting operation when they successfully recovered the Honduras Goodwill Moon Rock from a vault in Miami. The sting operation was known as "Operation Lunar Eclipse" and the participating agencies were NASA Office of Inspector General, the United States Postal Inspection Service and U.S. Customs. The moon rock was offered to the undercover agents for 5 million dollars.
- In To Catch a Predator, an NBC reality TV show hosted by Chris Hansen, decoys posing as minors have online conversations with potential sexual predators in an attempt to lure them to a meeting, where they are confronted by Hansen and the police.
- In White Collar (TV series), a fictional renowned thief, known as Neal Caffrey, is caught and serves as a criminal consultant for the FBI. Neal during these cases resumes a false identity to lure forgers and other thieves out of hiding such that the FBI can arrest and charge them.
- In the 2008 video game Grand Theft Auto IV, the website Littlelacysurprisepageant.com situated in the In-game internet was taken over by the in-game police, the LCPD, to catch "sexual deviants" that are attempting to view child pornography.
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Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, sting, operations, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrote a letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed spinach for her, with lots of butter.... I was impressed by Shirley Temple as a little girl my age who had power: she could write a piece for the newspapers and have it printed in her own handwriting.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth’s smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“You can’t have operations without screams. Pain and the knife—they’re inseparable.”
—Jean Scott Rogers. Robert Day. Mr. Blount (Frank Pettingell)
“Parents’ ability to survive a child’s unabating needs, wants, and demands...varies enormously. Some people can give and give....Whether children are good or bad, brilliant or just about normal, enormously popular or born loners, they keep their cool and say just the right thing at all times...even when they are miserable themselves, inexhaustible springs of emotional energy, reserved just for children, keep flowing unabated.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)