Who says bureaucrats don’t innovate? Check out this beautiful little scam:

1. Your local city decides to build a monorail and plans a route that runs over land currently occupied by your business.
2. Through eminent domain, the government takes your land against your will, and you are paid what the government decides is the fair market value.
3. The monorail plans fail, as any fan of The Simpsons could have predicted, so the city decides to unload the land.
4. Arguing that the land’s value has risen in the time since it was taken against your will, the city graciously offers to let you buy your land back, but only after jacking up the price by $70,000.

Sound far-fetched? It actually happened, to the owner of the Caffe Appassionato in Seattle.

Taking your property against your will and then selling it back to you at a higher price...sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference between government and organized crime.