In October 1906, Wilhelm Voigt, an ex-convict and unemployed shoemaker, orchestrated one of history's most audacious cons in the German Empire. Voigt purchased pieces of an army captain's uniform from various secondhand shops and assembled a complete Prussian officer's attire. Walking through Berlin, he intercepted two squads of soldiers returning to barracks, commanded them to follow him under alleged royal orders, and boarded a train to the town of Köpenick.
Upon arrival, Voigt led the troops to the town hall, placed the mayor and treasurer under military arrest for imaginary accounting irregularities, and requisitioned 4,000 marks from the municipal vault. He then issued formal receipts, instructed his soldiers to hold the building for half an hour, and calmly slipped away to a train station to change back into civilian clothes. The heist succeeded because Prussian society demanded absolute, unquestioned obedience to military rank.
When Voigt was eventually captured ten days later, the public broke into laughter, and Kaiser Wilhelm II himself was so amused by the expose of bureaucratic absurdity that he pardoned Voigt after two years in prison.