"if you pretend to lose your keys, it's not illegal to avoid helping the cops find them." I would be careful with that assertion - that likely depends on the j

"if you pretend to lose your keys, it's not illegal to avoid helping the cops find them." I would be careful with that assertion - that likely depends on the jurisdiction, but I'm quite convinced that this would be obstruction of justice. It may be hard to prove that you're doing that, but if they manage to do that, it would actually be a crime - once you're aware that there's a criminal proceeding, actually disposing of these keys so that cops wouldn't access the evidence would be obstruction of justice, and so would be intentionally asserting to the cops that you don't have the physical keys if you actually do have them (the right to remain silent does not protect making false statements). For example, there's quite a lot of precedent for obstruction of justice by hiding a gun that was being sought by an investigation; I seem to recall reading about a case where the actual murder could not be proven in court but the likely culprit was convicted for obstruction of justice by throwing the murder weapon into the river which was captured by cameras. However, I would say that you are quite likely to get away with this - just not because it's legal but rather because the circumstances making the difference between fair play and felony may be very hard to prove and prosecution might not bother unless they want to make a point by doing that.