Criminals—smart or dumb?

There's plenty of evidence on how dumb criminals are, but there is also evidence that some are smart. If you want to steal money, it's smart to go to where there's a lot it—the federal government.

The criminals, some of them former drug dealers, outwit the Internal Revenue Service by filing a return before the legitimate taxpayer files. Then the criminals receive the refund, sometimes by check but more often though a convenient but hard-to-trace prepaid debit card. 

Now, if everyone refused to give the government a no interest loan, then tax refunds would be so rare that the Treasury Dept. could investigate each one. So I guess criminals don't have to be that smart—just smarter than the rest of us.