We Don’t Need No Stinking Badges!

Is the cute name supposed to distract us from the fact that hundreds of fake badges and thousands of guns have been confiscated from people trying to get into secure areas around the city? Because then it’s not so cute:

Authorities have confiscated 243 fake police badges and some 21,000 weapons and made 164 arrests or citations at city federal buildings since May 2005, according to sources and documents obtained by The Post.

Sources said most of the busts came at 26 Federal Plaza, home of the FBI’s New York office, considered a prime terror target.

They added that one arrest turned up an individual suspected to have terrorist ties, and that other fake-badge arrests have nabbed criminals with outstanding warrants and lengthy records, including a convicted child molester.

A children’s nursery is located at 26 Federal Plaza.

One elderly man confessed after his arrest that he was using an old badge to sneak a brick into a federal building and assault a Social Security Administration employee whom he believed had bilked him on a payment.

A source with intimate knowledge of the Federal Protective Service’s crackdown — dubbed Operation Stinking Badges after the often-quoted line from the Humphrey Bogart flick “The Treasure of Sierra Madre” — said it was initiated in part after police “noticed a spike in people coming in with badges.”

In May 2005, the Federal Protective Service, a Department of Homeland Security agency that protects government buildings, changed its policy and started verifying every badge.

Prior to that, it was possible for someone to flash a shield and walk into a federal building unchecked.

Some visitors are packing plenty more than a fake badge. Officers netted bulletproof vests, 10 guns — even a spiked bat.