Its not an ignorant statement at all. If someone told me this story I would assume that the person selling the snakes didn't actually have any snakes and was in fact the one doing the robbing. As the person coming to buy the snakes was suppose to have 12k on them. I would be surprised to see a person trying to steal 20 snakes. Much easier to spend 12k without getting caught than to work with 20 snakes without getting caught.