Reviewing Some of the Strangest Security-Related News of the Past Year

In an ode to the man who brought strange to late-night talk shows, the incomparable David Letterman, compiled here is my top-10 list of strange security stories from 2025. (Are any readers old enough to remember Letterman's top 10 lists? If your answer to that question is, "David who?" then you might be the right demographic to understand the craze that led to criminality that captures our top spot for strange security story of the year.)

As always, security is serious, and our lighter touch with these stories should not betray the sometimes serious nature of the crimes therein.

When It’s Bat Boy vs. Drone, Bat Boy Wins: This year, Major League Baseball’s Athletics, formerly of Oakland and headed to Las Vegas, are playing home games in a minor league stadium in Sacramento, California. At their first game, an unwelcome visitor appeared in left field, and play stopped as the drone hovered a few feet above the field. And, well, I’ll let the bat boy, Stewart Thalblum, explain it: “Everybody was just looking at it for a little while and I’ve never had something like that happen. I was asking around, everybody’s looking and nobody from security or anything had gone out there so I was like, I don’t know whose responsibility it is, so I was like, OK, maybe it’s mine.” He walked over, carefully grabbed its underside working to avoid the blades, and beat it with a bat. ASIS has several sports team CSOs as members, so take note in case you need Thalblum's services.

A Guy Makes Up a Country, Claims to Be the Religious Ruler of the Made-Up Country, and Enters into 1,000-Year Lease Agreements with Indigenous Peoples: What? Is there something wrong with that? It turns out the country of Bolivia, which includes nearly 8 percent of the Amazon rainforest and includes several groups of indigenous peoples, does, in fact, frown on the practice. Bolivia deported the leader of the “United States of Kailasa.” A warning: This strange story has dark undertones since the leader left India after accusations of rape, torture, and child abuse.

Protecting Trade Secrets, No Matter the Costs: There may not be a higher-stakes competition in the corporate world than the competition for the best fast-food chicken. Enter the story from The Wall Street Journal, which details the lengths that Raising Cane’s goes to to keep the recipe for its sauce secret. No, it is not Thousand Island dressing. It’s 11 herbs and spices that you’ll need some serious information security hacks to get a hold of.

Drug-Addicted Rats Invade Houston Police: The quotes in this article about overflowing evidence rooms are what make this story. From the Houston mayor: “We got 400,000 pounds of marijuana in storage that the rats are the only ones enjoying.” And this from the Houston Forensic Science Center leader: “This is difficult getting these rodents out of there… They’re drug-addicted rats. They’re tough to deal with.”

ICE (Cream) Patrol Truck Causes Alarm: Several years ago, a man painted his ice cream truck—the kind that roams neighborhoods playing a jingle and selling frozen desserts—to resemble a police vehicle. There’s what to a casual observer would look like a badge straddled by the words “Las Vegas,” and in all caps “ICE CREAM PATROL.” When you see the truck and consider U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge to deport a million illegal immigrants, it’s easy to see how someone could mistake it for an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vehicle, which, unsurprisingly, is what happened.

It's the Principle (and the Principal), Because It’s Certainly Not the $25: It’s been more than a year, but the scandal is so acute that The Wall Street Journal still wrote nearly 1,500 words about it this week. At the heart of this sprawling story is a $25 Target gift card that went missing from the pre-K through sixth grade school mailroom in the small hamlet of Amagansett on New York’s Long Island. The case features 1,400 pages of testimony, nearly $25,000 in arbitration fees, and recordings from 38 surveillance cameras at the school. And in the end, the question remains: Did the school’s principal Maria Dorr swipe the $25 gift card?

This Time, I’m on the Side of the Thieves: In an act of art as protest, an exhibit in Copenhagen, Denmark, featured three caged piglets the artist planned to let starve to death over five days. He said the exhibit was meant to protest the pork industry in the country where, according to Animal Protection Denmark, hundreds or thousands of piglets die each day in the country because the pigs are bred to give birth to a litter of 20 even though the sows have only 14 teats. However, the protest was shortlived because thieves stole the piglets.

Calling Attention to Western Museums’ Appropriation of Treasures from Other Cultures: I get it, I’m with ASIS and I’m supposed to be on the side of cultural properties security professionals charged with protecting museum holdings. But I’m guilty, because I root for the players in a new video game from Epic Games called Retooled, in which players case facilities then outsmart (and outmuscle) those security professionals and repatriate artwork to the origin countries.

The Organized Crime Ring that Threatens Human Civilization: Macaques at a temple in Bali have learned that stealing phones out of people’s hands or sunglasses off of heads yields them a tasty treat in trade to return the items. They have even upped the extortion price; small bananas used to be the currency, but now they hold out for a package of junk food. Read on to learn how this is a serious threat to society.

And our top strange security article of the year:

The Lure of the Lububu Leads to Crime Rings and Counterfeits: It is not at all uncommon for the latest hot craze to lead to crimes. That’s the case with Labubus—Chinese-made troll-like plush toys that clip on to bags, clothing, or anything else that can support a clip. Some think they’re cute, others think they’re evil. But when new ones come out they are a hot commodity. Shipments get targeted by criminals, and counterfeiters get to work copying the design.