A Brooklyn McDonald's patron found herself the victim of an "elaborate ruse" when she visited the iconic eating establishment last weekend. Said ruse relieved the victim of her purse, without her knowledge.

What began as a simple meal of hamburgers and french fries degenerated into something darker and more injurious for a Gucci bag-toting visitor to a Bushwick McDonald's last Saturday. The New York Post reports that as the innocent women sat at a hard plastic table, consuming her comestibles, she was approached by what seemed, at first, to be a helpful employee of the restaurant.

All was not as it seemed.

This purported employee offered our hapless victim a free cup of coffee. As our victim would learn all too soon, there's no such thing as a free cup of coffee.

The following moments, we must conjecture, were a confusing whirlwind. The employee-poseur "accidentally" (accidentally? No, not accidentally) spilled the coffee on our victim's dining table, flooding the scene with a brown liquid that would, in more ways than one, obscure the details of the ongoing situation. As the flimflammer leaned over to clean up her "accidental" spill, she coolly placed her jacket over our erstwhile diner's aforementioned Gucci bag, and made off with it, all without the knowledge of the diner that said flimflammery was occurring.

Nigh upon 30 minutes had passed before our victim realized that she had been bamboozled. Her quest for a simple repast had turned into a day of deceit. She'd been relieved of her bag, her wallet, and—far more notably—her very dignity. It seemed that the "elaborate ruse" of Darlise Buggs, career criminal and swindling sharpie of the first order, had claimed the innocence of yet another stooge. In the festering core of the Rotten Apple, such unsuspecting pristine souls amount to little more than sitting ducks for the clever con artists who prowl our streets, always staying one step ahead in the perpetual game of wits that is life on the hard streets of the city.

Later that day, a cop spotted Buggs across the street from the McDonald's and busted her on a charge of grand larceny.

[NYP. Photo: romana klee/ Flickr]