(flickr.com/smemon)

Every savvy Facebooker knows that bragging about your misdeeds on the mostly-public social networking site is a huge no-no, but perhaps a lesser-known adage is this one: Don't accept friend requests from strangers, especially if they look like they might spend their days fighting crime for a living.

The New York Daily News reported yesterday that a cluster of NYPD cops nailed one of the city's worst burgling crews by friending them on Facebook and tracking their status updates for details about potential robberies.

Says the Daily News:

Officer Michael Rodrigues gleaned clues from the Facebook walls of members of the Brower Boys, a gang of teenagers who stole electronics from apartments and sold them to bodegas and other stores, authorities said Wednesday. The intel allowed police to trail the teens and arrest them immediately after they committed the crimes, officials said.

When the cops saw one of the members post "it's break-in day on the avenue," they set up their cameras and recorded two of the members breaking into an apartment, then arrested them.

The Wire: now with Mark Zuckerberg.