Neszapperdisguised

The NES Zapper was a cool little piece of kit back in the day, allowing gaming fans to use a realistic peripheral to enhance their experiences in titles like Duck Hunt, Wild Gunman, and more. As always, though, someone out there has to go and ruin the fun, with one man being caught using the accessory in a shocking criminal offence.

The earliest NES Zapper models, originally released back in 1984, were almost entirely grey to fit alongside the NES' colour schemes. Soon after, Nintendo completely changed the design to include bright orange sections, realising that the simplistic grey models could potentially be mistaken for real weapons if they were taken outside. Of course, wrapping the toy in dark tape sadly negates this bright colouring, and that is exactly what happened in this particular case.

The NES Zapper's usual appearance

The taped-up weapon was used by a man in Hermosillo, Mexico to rob a bank, with the accessory's usually-bright colouring being almost entirely hidden from view. Bank workers reportedly described the man to local police who, after mounting an operation to find the culprit, managed to track him down and arrest him. The man in question is thought to have potentially been involved in up to 15 other crimes.

[source cronio.sv, via gonintendo.com]