Thiefhunters in Paradise

Eat, drink, and be merry on La Rambla. Great for people-watching. Great for pickpockets. (This is a frame-grab from video, hence the poor quality.)

Yannick Laclau wrote about Barcelona, a city that Bob and I love. But Yannick’s news was a sad consequence of the ostrich hiding its head in the sand. He wrote that Barcelona is close to losing its status as host to the Mobile World Congress, partly because of street crime. If the conference does go elsewhere, it will be concrete evidence of the seriousness of Barcelona’s problem, which everyone knows about but few do anything about. (As if endless reports of robberies and muggings are not evidence.) If one conference pulls out, more are sure to follow. That ought to yank the ostrich’s head up. But as he just gazes bleary-eyed (“Hey, where’d everyone go?”) at lower tourism numbers, Barcelona’s convention bureau will have a helluva time convincing group organizers that the city is safe.

What a shame that attendees might miss fabulous Barcelona. Bob and I visit often. It’s one of our favorite cities for dining, atmosphere, and thiefhunting. But I must admit, while we hunt thieves in cities around the world, Barcelona is one of our best laboratories. Kharem, the thief I wrote about here operates in Barcelona. There’s tons about Barcelona featured in our book, Travel Advisory.

A pickpocket's cost of doing business.

Some cities and tourism bureaus take a pro-active stance in fighting tourist-related crime in an aggressive manner, by warning people, taking good care of victims, and prosecuting perps. Others sweep it under the carpet and suppress press articles. Negative publicity has a devastating effect on tourism: look at Kenya, Aruba, and South Africa, three dream destinations whose reputations have been pretty ruined by crime.

Honolulu and Orlando, as opposite examples of tourism destinations with their share of crime, fight hard to combat it. If you’re a victim of crime in these cities, you’re so well-taken care of that you leave with good feelings anyway. And, you’re likely to return for another vacation there, all expenses paid, in order to testify against the thief.

Eight or so years ago, we worked on a (major cruise line’s) ship, on which we entertained with a comedy pickpocket show, and also lectured passengers on how to avoid street theft. We gave examples and showed our own video of crime in action. The ship’s hotel director, who lived in Barcelona, was deeply offended that we showed actual examples from his city, which he insisted was one of the safest in the world! Later, we were told outright that the cruise line would prefer to keep their passengers ignorant of the dangers of the ship’s ports of call, rather than expose the “frightening” and “ominous” reality of travel.

Kharem, a pickpocket in Barcelona, showed us a stack of fines he was required to pay to the court. They ranged from 80 to 150 euros each.

Numerous factors help explain Barcelona’s rampant thievery. Tax and immigration issues, packed prisons, overextended judicial systems, law enforcement budget constraints, high unemployment, all contribute to the persistence of street crime. But when the courts give a pickpocket a monetary fine to pay, how do they expect him to obtain the funds?

So is Barcelona right to just let itself be what it will be? Do officials realize (or care) that most visitors are not as city-savvy as its locals are, and are thereby more apt to become victims? Individuals like Canadian Mary Chipman, who broke her hip when a bagsnatcher pulled her to the ground, don’t matter. Neither do the hundred or so individuals documented on Street Scams of Barcelona, or any like them. But when conventions start pulling out, perhaps local businesses will hurt enough to instigate some changes. We shall see.

Never mind. I will continue to visit Barcelona and recommend it as an exciting place to visit. And, there’s one failsafe way to avoid pickpockets.

Feb. 21, 2009 update: what happened one year later?

And the charges are: against him, breaking and entering; against his sister, poisoning by E.coli.

It started with a loud thud in the dead of night, immediately followed by heavy breathing. I jumped out of bed and looked out the window, but it was too dark to see a thing. The labored breath was right outside. I also heard a wet trickle.

Exactly one year ago, I spent a magical week in the Galapagos. My sister chartered the 14-passenger yacht Parranda for the family. Besides our two onboard naturalists, we were six adults and six teens. I was asleep in my stateroom when I heard the intruder. Our yacht was in motion, sailing from San Salvador Island to Bartolome Island, so I couldn’t fathom who could have come aboard, or how. The chef’s provisioner? The captain’s wife? Pirates of the Galapagos?

I learned in the morning that it had been an 800-pound sea lion that had launched itself aboard for a free ride. It wasn’t alone, either. Several other beasts had made the aft deck their lounge for the night. The crew hates their visits, as they leave quite a mess behind.

A few days later, snorkeling off the coast of Floreana Island, we were joined briefly by a penguin and a couple of sea turtles. Then a flock (pride? school?) of sea lions surrounded us, jetting playfully among us with speed and grace never betrayed on land.

Close, close encounters with wild animals are thrilling, and I’ve had more than my share. I held someone’s pet bat in Ponape. I wrestled with a pair of 14-week-old lion cubs in Johannesburg. I had my hand in a kangaroo’s pouch in Sydney. I swam with hammerhead sharks in Maui, stingrays in Cayman Islands, and giant clams in Palau. To visit wild animals in their own milieu, to feel a clumsy foreigner in their domain, like an interloper and a trespasser, is wondrous. Mind-blowing. Jaw-dropping.

Jaw-dropping. Joyous. Laughing while snorkeling gets one a mouthful of seawater. The giant sea lion was just inches away from Geri when it let loose an opaque cloud.

That night onboard, all six kids got seasick at once. By morning, they had all recovered except for Geri, who deteriorated slowly. It wasn’t until she saw her doctor back home that we realized she’d been poisoned ingesting sea lion turd.

Pockets and purses and those who pick them. I’ve posted two new pages: Pocketology 101 and Purseology 101. I’m thinking of adding video to them. Then maybe some day I’ll write advanced courses.

I’ve never understood the logic of this neck contraption. It pushes the head forward—but for sleeping, wouldn’t you rather have your head back? If I had one, I’d wear it backwards. But I don’t want one. I wonder how many people try this thing more than once? Does it work for anyone, or is it just a scam, like the “throw your voice” gimmick I ordered off the back of a cereal box when I was eight? This guy eventually put it in his lap.

They really hang loose in Honolulu. This man, a former Minnesotan, told us he’s been “tropicalized” after living in Hawaii for 30 years. He works in Honolulu’s oldest bar. I took his picture with his permission.

Hong Kong’s famous skyscrapers are just beyond this hill.

I remember when I used to hunt for wild mushrooms in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I’d find nothing the first hour or so. But after spotting the first one, even if it wasn’t a candy cap or chanterelle or boletus, other mushrooms would practically pop into view. It was just a matter of focus and concentration. Likewise looking for pickpockets. “Watch their eyes,” our favorite New York subway cop, Lothel Crawford, used to tell us. The eyes—and the body language as well. With their ulterior motives, these interlopers belong to a crowd like an inchworm to a salad. A practiced eye will spot them.And what is the crowd doing? Enjoying the sights, as they should be. But too many travelers forget their good judgment when they pack their pajamas. High on excitement, relaxed after a beer or an unaccustomed lunchtime glass of wine, disoriented with jetlag, going with the flow—too many fall victim to the dreaded Tourist Suspension of Common Sense. I call it Holiday Headspace. It’s an easy-going, carefree attitude which gives us an unequivocal handicap in a city not our own. Or, even in our own backyard.

Like most Americans, I was raised to be kind, friendly, and open to strangers. Cynicism is an unnatural state for a traveler who has come far to experience a new land and unfamiliar customs. We’re prepared to accept our local hosts, however alien or exotic they seem to us. After all, it’s their country. We want to like them. Yet, we don’t know how to read these foreigners, even though they may seem just like us. We can’t always interpret their body language, their facial expressions, their gestures. We’re at a distinct disadvantage as tourists and travelers, due to our nature as much as our innocence.

Of all the victims we’ve spoken with, a couple robbed in Athens puzzled me most. The woman’s bag had been slit with a razor on the infamous green line train between the Parthenon and Omonia Square, the city center. Noticing the gash, we pointed it out to her as we exited the train. The couple was visiting Greece from Scotland, they told us as they inventoried the contents of the bag, and it was the last day of their stay. Their few remaining traveler’s checks were missing, but the woman’s cash was safe in a zippered compartment. The biggest loss was her passport, which would cost dearly in time and aggravation. They would miss their flight home the next morning, and have to purchase expensive, one-way, last-minute tickets, as well as an unplanned hotel night. The complications of a delayed return home were another factor, with work, childcare, and other obligations.

They suffered more inconvenience than financial loss, and perhaps that is why they didn’t seem as upset as most other victims we meet. Maybe they were secretly pleased to get another day away from the boredom or difficulties or sheer madness of their home routine—whatever it is they were escaping from.

In any case, we were amazed to hear them cheerily admit that they had been pickpocketed before. Bob and I tend to assume that an intimate encounter with a street thief bestows a sort of earned awareness on the victim, and he or she is thereafter unlikely to be had again. The Scottish couple, however, seemed almost to laugh it off, resigned to the fact that they were destined to be victims.

They had no concept of what made them so appealing as marks; and no idea that they had practically advertised their vulnerability. They were fascinated to learn that some pickpockets look out for a certain type of target, and that, even as tourists, they had a certain amount of control over their desirability toward pickpockets.

“Dress down,” Bob always tells his audiences. “Leave your jewelry at home. Don’t give off signals.” In other words, if you’re going to be in an unpredictable environment, try not to look like an affluent tourist. “Have pace in your face,” Bob says, meaning: know where you are and where you’re going. Try not to appear lost and bewildered. Lost and bewildered equals vulnerable.

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter One (part-h): High and Dry on the Streets of Elsewhere

Naples, Italy— After lunch, Mario must leave us and we four are left to stumble through the dangerous quarter accompanied only by pidgin. Officer DC leads us deep into mafia headquarters, where families fight families and the Camorra rules. He points out the most life-threatening piazzas and says the gangs have their own areas and specialties: drugs, prostitution, stealing, counterfeiting.

Bob pauses to film a picaresque street; one of many that seem straight out of a black and white movie.

“Bob—” DC starts.

“Oh—I’ll put it away,” Bob apologizes.

“No. Bob.” DC pulls up his shirt and reveals his police belt and guns. “With me, you do anything. You are safe!”

Since our near-mugging here in 1994, we’ve been fascinated by this designated danger zone. Our motorcycle tour three years ago only increased the allure. Yet, we’ve ventured only a few blocks in at most, each time getting the shivers as spotters’ whistles echo off the high walls and Vespa-mounted muggers circle us like sharks around a bleeding seal. We’ve tried it carrying nothing, no jewelry, watches, cameras, or bags, only to chicken out with memories of three men on a silent scooter grabbing us from behind, and a hundred first-person reports of watch- and bag-thefts.

Today we’re not scared. We swing our arms carelessly. Walk without looking behind us. Leisurely pause to examine fresh produce, a wall plaque, fanciful architecture.

We’re going to see the biggest Rolex thief, DC tells us, and the number one drug dealer. It isn’t clear if this is one person or two, but it doesn’t matter. We turn down a street of blinding sun light and deep shadow, narrow, like an alley, like all the streets in this Italian barrio. It would look like a slum if it weren’t so full of Hollywood character. The female coterie in plastic chairs, the don seated suitably apart flanked by a pair of young men and a pair of mean dogs. The only thing wrong with the picture? AS seems too young to rule a family. I can easier picture him dancing in a gay bar, with his tight jeans and red t-shirt stretched over buff biceps. But what do I know about mafiawear? What I do know is that this is one tough thug, gracious in polite company, but very likely soon off to the clink like his homeboys.

This is part 5 of 5.           Back to beginning

Naples, Italy— Mario is not only intelligently fluent in English and Italian—he is interested in the conversation. He excavates the essence when Officer DC expounds on the legality of the pacco biz.. Apparently, the victim has to “denounce,” or make a complaint against, the seller, but the victim can be denounced, too, for buying from a thief. And in the end, the judge will toss it out because he has many bigger crimes to deal with. But wait—that’s another story.

I mention that we had seen Luciano and his brother Angelo working the trams in the morning. DC sort of snorts. Simple pickpockets. Too small fish for him to be concerned with.

No wonder the thieves are thick in Naples.

We are lucky that DC is at our disposal today. He has just returned from a three-month course in Rome where he qualified as a machine gun instructor. He and his girlfriend were nearby when we called his cell phone. They hurried over to meet us. On a small player, we showed him some of last year’s video of local thieves, including Nuncio, the white-haired “businessman” from whom Bob lifted a tie.

“White hair means experience,” DC said.

Strange then, that he didn’t recognize this experienced Napolitano pickpocket.

DC will be 33 in October. He and his girlfriend plan to go to Las Vegas then to get married. First, he laughs, he will study English. Like most Napolitanos, they know little.

“You still haven’t told me how they steal the watch off your right wrist when you’re driving,” DC says.

Since he’d dropped it, I hadn’t realized that he actually had an answer.

“When you put your left hand out to fix the mirror, they burn it with a cigarette,” he said.

This is part 4 of 5.        Next               Back to beginning

Naples, Italy— For most of this day, we’ve been accompanied by Mario, a friend and fabulous translator. Born in Italy, educated in Australia, now settled in Las Vegas, Mario grew up speaking textbook Italian at home while secretly imitating his parents’ Napolitano dialect, which he wasn’t allowed to use.

“No way!” Mario had said earlier, as Officer DC explained why the pacco men are allowed to continue their bait-and-switch scam year after year. They were now offering Bob a cell phone as we traversed their territory, not noticing our plainclothes police pal. When they recognized DC, they flocked around him like awestruck fans. DC eventually pushed through the gangster gauntlet, complaining that we’d never get to lunch if we stopped to talk with every crook. [More on bait-and-switch, eventually.]

We turn into the Quartieri Spagnoli telling Mario how it’s not just your ordinary neighborhood. We pass the spot where Bob had been pinned from behind so long ago, a two-handed Rolex-robbery attempted on his old model by three of AS’s butterfingered predecessors. DC selects an empty trattoria. He orders “a mixture” for all of us, and a feast arrives, plate by small plate. Crisp-fried sardines, miniature arugula, zucchini flowers, and the tenderest calamari we’ve ever eaten.

“Watch your bag,” DC cautions Bob, who sits closest to the open door. DC, of course, has his back to the wall. “Do you know how they steal a watch when you’re driving a car?

“Yes,” I say. “When you’re stuck in traffic, they squeeze between cars on their scooters and fold your side mirror to get by. You reach out to fix the mirror and the next scooter-rider grabs it.”

DC seems disappointed that I know.

“How would they do it if you wear your watch on your right wrist?”

I say I don’t know.

“They make you shake hands, for some reason,” Bob suggests. DC doesn’t say.

This is part 3 of 5.          Next           Back to beginning

Naples, Italy— We’re introduced to AS, tattooed and be-dogged, in front of his female family members. Women of several generations sit in plastic chairs in the shady alley—shady as in dim and dubious—surrounded by lots of girls, one with an arm in a cast. The men, presumably, are mostly in prison. The boys, presumably, are out on scooters, scippatori-in-training. Two little boys, six or seven years old, buzz by on the cutest little scooter, a perfect replica with authentic speed and a full-size spine-chilling whine. If you’ve ever been the victim of scippatori, scooter-riding bandits, as we sort-of were in 1994, the beginning of our street-crime research, you never forget the sound.

When we first met DC three years ago, he and a colleague gave Bob and me a tour of this hillside hood on the backs of their souped-up motorcycles. He introduced us to AT, another of the top three Rolex thieves, who is now taking a five-year chill. When we asked, AT had copped to stealing about ten Rolexes a week. And that was in the presence of a police officer. But AT was skittish about the video camera we held in plain sight. He wasn’t worried about being identified; he said he didn’t want to show a bad image of Naples.

Like AT three years ago, AS speaks in front of Officer DC as if he were a collaborator, not a cop. At Bob’s request, he shows some methods of stealing Rolexes. One style is to grab the face and twist it. But it depends on the age of the watch. The old ones could be swiped by a single person. New ones take two. AS snaps a Rolex on Bob, who sports plastic today, and demonstrates a two-handed rip-off. I ask if I can videotape the demo from behind and AS allows it.

This is part 2 of 5.       Next        Back to beginning.

Naples, Italy— Here’s something you didn’t know. It takes two men to steal a new model Rolex, while the older ones can be snatched by a single person. That’s the sort of gem our research nets, if we don’t piss off the mafiosi by pointing a camera into their faces (while they’re looking). Their rottweilers look like overstuffed pups, but you know there’s a reason the dogs are kept close, and you know the animals’ allegiance is backed by ferocious power, flesh-shredding choppers, and bone-crunching jaws.

Nice doggy!

I wonder if Rolex is aware that it doubled labor requirements in the hostile acquisitions market? Still, everyone wears a Rolex in this neighborhood. The children of thieves wear them. “They don’t have one euro in their pocket,” we’re told, “but they wear a Rolex.”

The manpower numbers come straight from an expert: one of the three major Rolex thieves in the capital city of Rolex theft. “AS” [can't use real names, sorry], our source today, is currently at large; but his two buddies are in jail, arrested by our guide and host, Officer DC, of Naples’ Falchi Squad, the tough undercover cops who fight power with power.

So it’s a strange sort of respect and cooperation and turning a blind eye when DC knocks on the big steel door in the heart of Quartieri Spagnoli, Naples’ no-go zone if you’re not mafia (or police). A peek-a-boo slot opens and words are exchanged. “No video,” Officer DC says to me, drawing a big square around his face. I take it to mean that I can film, but not faces.

This is part 1 of 5.              Next

High and Dry on the Streets of Elsewhere
Chapter One, part-g, Travel Advisory—

Barcelona, a fusion of passion and creativity, chaos and order, where art is in every detail, is a living laboratory of street crime. It’s one of our favorite places in which to study this bizarre subculture, and it supports a great diversity of practitioners from the various branches of thievery. With patience and practice, the keen-eyed observer will be rewarded with abundant examples of pickpocketing, bagsnatching, and three-shell games.

La Rambla is the marvelous Main Street of Barcelona. The crowds swirl doing La Rambla things. There is incredibly much to look at: the Dr. Seuss-like architecture of Antoni Gaudi, caricature artists at work, caged doves cooing, couples performing the tango, living statues, musicians, puppeteers, intoxicating flower shops, and tempting cafés offering tapas, paella, and sangria. One can’t help but be caught up in it all.

On duty, Bob and I saunter and prowl, observant and suspicious. It’s the height of summer and the crowds are thick as—well, thick as thieves. We’re hypertuned to inappropriate behavior; suspects pop out of the crowd as if they have TV-news graphic circles drawn around them. One of us merely has to say “ten o’clock” and the other glances slightly left and knows exactly who, of the hundreds in view, is meant.

What are those pop-art pictures called, the wallpaper-like fields of swirly pattern that, when stared at long enough finally push forward an object or scene? Stereograms, I think. Blink, and the object disappears into the repetition of the pattern. Likewise our suspects: with concentration, we force them to materialize out of sameness into a dimension all their own.

But in two ways, they easily return to the background. First, we may lose them: they’re too fast; they turn a corner; they duck into an alley we don’t want to enter; or we turn our attention elsewhere. Second, their behavior is suddenly validated: for example, a fast moving pair of men looking left and right, darting ahead of clusters, purpose in their pace and us on their tail, eventually catch up to their wives. Perfectly innocent! In Venice, in Lima, in Barcelona, we wasted energy observing the bizarre behavior of deviants who turned out to be perverts. They just wanted to rub up against women, not pick their purses. Once, we tracked a pair of plainclothes police. Sure, we follow lots of dead ends-just as directors audition endless rejects.

As Bob and I travel the world in our role as thief-hunters, we hang with outlaws and shady characters. The Tiger Lillies sing songs about the underworld culture we study. I like their twisted take on taboo subjects, their lullabies of filth and scandal. Their genre is macabre cabaret: upside down ballads of misery and despair. Lots of songs about pimps, pushers, prostitutes, pickpockets, and other perps and perverts — but they’re sung disarmingly sweet and harmonic, with catchy rhythms.

National Public Radio has a little segment in its Weekend America series called Weekend Soundtrack. Listeners submit a favorite song for weekend listening and talk about it on the radio.

Back in October, I submitted a song. I wanted to get The Tiger Lillies some good exposure, and I know how good NPR exposure can be. When we were on our book sales spiked and we got calls from media around the world.

A week after my submission, Michael Raphael, from AmericanPublicMedia.org, emailed:

Bambi, I would love to talk to you about your weekend soundtrack. When are you available?

I gave him some open windows but heard nothing back. I wrote him a few times and got replies like:

Sorry Bambi, I’ve been swamped. Are you in the US this week?

and later:

Sorry Bambi — it has been a mad scramble toward the end of the year hear [sic]. I will be out of town until 1/5. I hate to do this, but let’s try and pick this up the week of 1/7.

After that I gave up.

Shucks. I really wanted to do it. I’m surprised at the rude behavior of American Public Media, too. Screw ‘em, though.

When my “weekend” comes around, I like to play Souvenirs, by The Tiger Lillies. I like the body-twitching sound of it. I like the unusual voice of singer Martyn Jacques and — who would expect to love accordion as accompaniment? (Note to my techless loved ones: press the blue arrow to play the song, if you dare.)

The song is about someone who has a huge collection of souvenirs from around the world, but they’re all scars and sicknesses. Bob and I travel around the world about 250 days a year, so we have a lot of souvenirs, too. None as ghoulish, though. My collection is mostly intangible and made of memories, cultural experiences, and awareness of the wider world.

The character in the song now has a regular job — he works in a fairground — and he deals with people he has little in common with, people with ordinary lives and jobs. He has trouble relating to these people, and would rather find an excuse to tell about his travels. Being on the road and out of the U.S. so much for the past 15 years, I’m mostly out of touch with popular culture and can’t participate in conversations about television shows, celebrities, or sports.

For me, the “weekend” is really a trip-end, no matter the day of the week. Souvenirs is my unpacking song, as I sort the laundry from the unworn, put away things, and pull out my own souvenirs. Over the years we’ve brought home a lot. No diseases that we know about, and no serious injuries, as in the song.

The Tiger Lillies made a wonderful record based on unpublished poems given to them by Edward Gorey, recorded with the Kronos Quartet, called The Gorey End. My favorite Tiger Lillies songs are a bit too risque for radio: Maria, about a murdered woman, Trampled Lily, about a girl who gets sucked into a life of abuse and prostitution and dies young; Angel, and Pretty Lisa, both with similar themes, and Weeping Chandelier (the Gorey End version), which is a beautiful and haunting tango with Kronos Quartet. I guess their lyrics keep The Tiger Lillies off the radio, which is a terrible shame. Since I started listening to them only two years ago, I find other music rather boring. Lucky for me, the Tiger Lillies have more than 20 albums out.

Here are some of the souvenirs I’ve carried home:

• Lamps from Holland, South Africa, Spain,
  Germany, and Poland.
• Beaded necklaces from Kenya, Italy, South Africa,
  Peru, Tahiti, and Costa Rica. Amber from the Baltic,
  and old silver from India.
• Masks from Borneo, Indonesia, Thailand, Peru,
  Alaska, Papua New Guinea, and Panama.

I’d like to hear what you think of Souvenirs. Care to comment?