Crime does pay - minimum wage

According to his online dating profile, Jamie Flanz was a CEO. In real life, the 37-year-old's fortunes were not so fetching. Flanz was a tow truck driver and a prospective Bandidos member — an association that led to his slaying last week.

Though he might have imagined himself as a high-rolling executive, his was not a life of riches. Nor was it for the other seven men who died as part of what was described as the Bandidos' brutal "internal cleansing."

One victim was a 41-year-old man who lived with his parents. Another lived in his truck. They all depended on full-time jobs to get by.

And they all met a gruesome fate.

This meagre existence counters the glamorized perception of those who choose a life of crime over the plebeian existence of the masses. We imagine criminals, divested of the taxes, 40-hour work weeks and mortgages that saddle the common person, cruising along Easy Street, flush with cash and hard drugs, and having wild sex.

The profiles of the eight men who died should prove, once and for all, that crime doesn't pay.

"We have this idea that these guys that work outside system, maybe they've got it right, maybe these people are having a better life than the guy doing 9 to 5 — but most criminals live in poverty," says Cecil Greek, a professor of criminology at Florida State University.

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Free-Agent Smith said:

Why?

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