Well, that's one way to get out of a parking ticket.
Sounding authoritative and pretending to speak into his wrist, 26-year-old Moe Sargi convinced an Ottawa By-law Officer he was with the NSA.
NSA stands for the National Security Agency in the United States. “But NSA could mean a million things," argues Sargi. "It could mean National Stupid Agency."
Sargi was pulling a prank, seeing what kind of reaction he could get while an accomplice video-taped the exchange from nearby. They taped it in Ottawa’s Byward Market in the summer of last year.
He managed to get the By-law Officer to remove a parking ticket he had just placed on a car. What's more, it wasn't even Sargi's car. "A random car. I don't even know whose car it is," he says.
For Sargi it wasn't about the ticket. It was about the video he could post on his YouTube channel, called Dirt Star Pranks.
Moe Sargi, you see, is a serial prankster. "It's what I was born to do. When I was a kid I used to trick people all the time," he explains. "Pranking is fun. It comes naturally."
It can also be risky. In this instance, he could well have been charged with a crime. "Technically, if a complaint was put in we'd have to investigate and he could possibly face a charge for impersonating a peace officer," says Constable Marc Soucy of the Ottawa Police Service.
The City of Ottawa would have to lodge the complaint. Linda Anderson, Chief of Bylaw Services, says that’s unlikely. "I have reviewed the video and am satisfied that the By-law Officer conducted himself in an appropriate and professional manner. We will not be conducting any further investigation," she says.
Sargi says it’s all part of the job. He says he’ll keep pulling even more extreme pranks in his ongoing search for more subscribers to his channel, and more YouTube views.
