The arrest of crime lord junior Rangi Park on Oct. 3 marked the end of a sprawling crime syndicate in one of the most seemingly innocuous high schools across the country: Northwood High School.

Ironically, Park was taken down by none other than a TikTok trend known as “Devious Lick,” a simple, harmless prank where students steal irreplaceable and expensive school items and vandalize school property. While the trend itself was not worrying, an off-hand investigation detected hints of a greater crime scene simmering just below Northwood’s studious facade.

“Initially, we were just looking for a stolen PC and monitor,” police officer Dan Man with a Plan said. “Nothing too exciting; just another Devious Lick. But as we searched through the classrooms, teachers began to mention that pencils were missing. Now that caught our attention.”

Authorities immediately began to dig deeper, and, after painstaking investigation, were able to trace the crimes back to Park, who had expanded his empire to vast proportions at the time of investigation.

“We never even dreamed that high schoolers were at this level,” Man said. “Pens, kleenexes, those tiny chunks of black foam that occasionally fall out of whiteboard erasers which haven’t been replaced in decades since the teacher got them; think of anything valuable, and these students have probably stolen it.”

Yet the reason that Park was able to stay low for so long despite these audacious crimes was rampant corruption in a thriving black market. Information about the black market came in morsels, even after Park was arrested, due to the allure of its goods.

“All we know is that only a few students have access to the treasures of the Northwood black market, and they’re the negotiators with the general public,” an anonymous informant named Chae Lee said. “Teachers line up just to give these students A’s, and everybody gives them free Pop-tarts from the snack line.”

And on the market are enticing items indeed, including an annotated copy of “Things Fall Apart” and a whole, unbroken piece of 0.5mm lead. The latter item caused a full-on civil war between factions of the syndicate, with battles being carried out through passive-aggressive comments on calculus midterm scores.

“The fact that Park was able to reign in these menaces and wield any form of influence over them is a testament to his strength,” Irvine City Councilmember Jack Jack said. “He may be one of the greatest criminal masterminds our generation has seen, to be able to build such a terrifying empire.”Matt

Park is currently facing criminal charges in court, and the expected sentence is a seventeen-minute detention recorded in Park’s official Aeries transcript.