As some of you already know, I’ve written many a sad lament about Chicago, that old gray mare who ain’t what she used to be. But let it never be said that, despite our travails during this “down” patch in city history, we’re not a relentlessly innovative bunch when it comes to our pride and national speciality: crime. Why, I like to think of us as the Silicon Valley of crime, whether it be violent, organized, civic, or any combination of the three.

So let’s tip our caps once again to the improvisational talent of the City of Fraud Shoulders and look in as an exciting new form of gun crime is born: “fake-robbery for hire.” For you see, it turns out that hundreds of illegal immigrants living in Chicago have been nabbed in a sting, paying money to a fake robbery gang to pretend to rob them so that they can gain preferential immigration status as an illegal to avoid deportation. What, you’re disgusted by the sheer comic depravity of that? C’mon now – I used to be disgusted. Now I try to be amused.

And sometimes you just have to admire the moxie of the stupidity:

CHICAGO — Federal prosecutors on Friday announced charges against five people in connection with a Chicago-based scheme that staged armed robberies so the purported victims could apply for U.S. immigration visas reserved for legitimate crime victims. . . .

Officials believe hundreds of people, including some who traveled from out of town, posed as customers in dozens of businesses across Chicago and elsewhere, all hoping to win favorable immigration status by becoming “victims” of pre-arranged “armed robberies.”

I emphatically invite all lovers of true and stupid crime alike to read the full story from CWB Chicago, a fine local outlet covering crime in the city. (A perfect detail: During one staged hold-up, a robber accidentally shot a liquor-store clerk meant to be the innocent dupe — and thus honest witness — among five other “paying customers.”)

How can I not laugh? It’s amazing: When faced with the confluence of two plagues currently overtaking the city — never-ending violent and/or gun crime and the influx of illegal immigrants taxing the city’s already stretched resources — these guys united the streams. We talk about big-city alienation, but this might well be Brandon Johnson’s idea of a success story: two criminal elements finding a way to work together, the way people in the unfriendly big city are supposed to but rarely do.

What can you say? Chicago is a town with deep and complicated layers to its problems. But I nevertheless tip my cap to the bubblingly alchemical creativity of our underclass. Top that, you lazy Portland bums! New York, you were always second-raters. Watching our “violent hoodlum” element and our “illegal alien” element so effortlessly hook up with and exploit one other for mutual gain at the expense of civic order and the occasional gutshot bystander — why it’s enough to bring a tear to a man’s eye. Just don’t ask me why I’m crying.