Thiefhunters in Paradise

The adorable, 16-pound baby.

Anyone remember this old relic?

We were so thrilled with it. We’d spent a year in Africa and needed a laptop. Apple didn’t make one yet, so we had to buy a DOS machine. Shortly after we got home, Apple came out with a luggable.

Bob and I were on a cruise ship with our Mac Portable. The machine was a year or so old—that’s how long ago this was. Bob sat at the desk in our stateroom, I on the bed, with my 16-pound Mac open in front of me.

“Pass me a paperclip,” I said to him.

Apple logo circa 1989.

He tossed, I missed. The paperclip fell right into a narrow gap behind the display, where the back end of that computer extended another four or so inches. Instantly, a thin wisp of smoke arose and, like a cartoon, curled its wavy way right up to the smoke detector. On a ship. At sea.

I gave the gap a good blow and was horrified to see a little red flame dancing within. We got the tiny fire out quickly, but the machine was dead.

The size of a small suitcase.

The story’s not over though. We had a fancy neoprene case for the Mac Portable, embossed with a pretty little Apple logo. On our way home, we bought extra insurance for the case and sent it as baggage—something we’d otherwise never do. We hoped it would be stolen. We were sure it would be.

Not a reflection. Handle, display, hinge, back end.

On arrival, we waited at the baggage carousel—and waited. Finally, we went to the lost luggage office to report the loss of our insured computer. “Oh, we have your bag,” they said. It got extra care since it was insured, and they wanted to hand it to us personally. (Yeah. Those were the days.)

I found the old Portable in the garage recently. It has some parts tucked into its case I don’t remember, like a huge battery brick. Though it doesn’t start up, I can’t throw it out. I don’t know why.

How safe is the safe in your hotel room? Not safe at all, it turns out, unless you factor in the odds. Odds are, your safe won’t be broken into. But the fact is, the crackin’s easy. Of course it is—hotels must be able to rescue valuables from faulty memories (forgotten codes, departed guests who forgot to empty their safes), lost keys, dead batteries, and power outages.

Hotel management and/or security can always access room safes. But how? Depends on the kind of safe. Does it open with a metal key? By swiping a magnetic card, or punching in a code? Does it use a plastic key card with a pattern of holes punched in it?

A hotel in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

Bob and I have long endorsed the use of safes in hotel rooms, as long as they are electronic. We’ve shied away from metal- and plastic-key safes, concerned about how many copies float around. But there are other ways to enter safes, and an untold number of people who have access, authorized or otherwise.

A deluge of thefts from hotel room safes in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, led to an investigative report by Burkhard Kress for Extra, a news show on German RTL TV (unfortunately not online).

Hidden camera captures master override code.

Kress booked a room there and mounted a hidden camera, then called hotel management for help opening his safe. The hidden camera footage captured the code that management punched into the safe’s keypad, which ended with the room number. With the permission of the guest in the room next to his, Kress tried the same code appended with the other room number. The neighbor’s safe opened. Anyone with the master code could open every safe in the hotel.

And anyone with a hidden camera could capture the master code.

These three, who shared a room, called police when they found cash missing from their safe. As there were no signs of a forced entry, they believe they were robbed by hotel staff. Police never responded to their call, so they went to the police station.

Kress had his cameraman stake out a different room for a week, waiting for a safe break-in. Alas, he was never hit. Eventually, Kress found out why. The thefts occur in rooms booked by two or more friends staying together. When a theft is reported, front desk staff insist the theft was committed by one of the “friends.”

Guests are required to pay a fee for the use of the safe. This, along with the fact that the only rooms hit are booked by two or more friends, leads me to suspect that these safe thefts are inside jobs. Who but front desk staff know both those facts? Of course the thieves might also be former employees, or individuals in cahoots with an employee.

According to Eric Fischer, a tour leader interviewed by Kress, these thefts have been going on for years at this and other hotels in Palma. He’s kept a log of them. He himself had €14,500 stolen from the safe in his room. When the Spanish police investigated the theft without much interest, Fischer suggested that they take fingerprints. “The police responded no,” he said, “you must be watching too much German TV—we don’t do that.”

These old safes can still be found in budget hotels.

What about those plastic key cards with a pattern of holes punched in them? They can be copied onto cardboard by anyone with a pencil and a hole punch. Safes that open with a keypad or your own magnetic card (credit card, grocery store card, or anything swipeable) often have a visible keyhole for a tool held by hotel management or security. Or, the safe may have an innocuous-looking panel that simply snaps off to reveal the keyhole. Whose got that key?

Bob and I have also come across safes screwed to loose shelves in closets.

In our book, we wrote:

Safe-cracks are extremely rare, although a man was recently arrested in Palma de Mallorca and charged with a spate of hotel safe robberies. Somehow, he had come into possession of a master tool which hotel security uses to open certain jammed electronic safes. (Other electronic safes can be opened by security using numerical bypass codes.) Presumably then, the man also had the tools to get into the hotel room itself. The burglar posted his female accessory at the elevator. They each had a cellphone and kept an open connection between them. When people came to the elevator, the woman would delay them for one minute. The burglar would hear the conversation, tidy up, and get out of the room.

Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Scams While Traveling
Chapter Four, Hotels: Have a Nice Stay

The “international conman” captured last September social-engineered his way into guest rooms and tricked hotel staff into opening safes. Hotel management, meanwhile, walks a fine line, compromising somewhere between providing real security and reluctance to inconvenience guests.

So how does Mr. International Conman get into your safe? Or—maybe not your safe because, obviously, he’s going to target a “whale,” or some other affluent hotel guest. First, he needs to get into your room—when you’re not there. Like any good con artist, he knows that front desk staff at most hotels will ask for ID, so he’s prepared. Here’s how. First, he follows you to learn your room number. Later, he goes to the front desk and, giving your room number, asks for a printout of “his” charges to date. Bingo. He’s now got your name and address. Next job is to whip out a fake ID, right in his car in the parking lot. Sounds like a lot of trouble, doesn’t it? But look at the payout.

Our usual set of old, beat-up Halliburtons.

What should you do, then, with your million-dollar bauble? Carry the stuff and get pickpocketed or mugged? Leave it in the hotel safe for the safe-cracker to burgle? Put it in the front office safe? Often, Bob and I choose to lock our stuff into our largest hardsided (aluminum) luggage.

This is a good moment for intuition, or at least for some conscious reasoning. Bob and I stay some 200 or more nights a year in hotels and, though we don’t always use the safe, we’ve never had a problem with one. YMMV. The practical danger in using the hotel safe is remembering to empty it before you check out. When I expect a hurried or groggy, pre-dawn check-out, I scrawl a bedside note to myself.

What kind of joints do you stay in? What do you carry?

Adult: “Nice dog. What’s his name?”

“Thermidore.”

“Hi Sermidore! Good dog!”

“THERmidore,” child enunciates.

“Oh, SIR Midore,” adult says. “An honorable dog.”

“No, Ther-mi-dore.”

“Shake, Sirmidore!”

“Are you thick?” The boy is disgusted.

“No, it’s just an allergy.”

Heads up, travelers. Beware the clever new scam happening in hotels now. In order to thwart it, proactive properties are placing notes like this one into guest rooms:

Dear Guest:

Lately, scam artists are attempting to secure credit card numbers from guests in hotels. They’re calling guest rooms at random and claiming to be hotel employees needing to verify credit card information. For your own protection, please do not give your credit card number over the telephone while staying in the hotel. …

My regular readers know that I stay in hotels more than 200 nights a year, and I research scams and cons. Yet, even I could very easily have fallen for this perfectly believable trick. It falls into the “pretexting” and “social engineering” categories. I got a chill reading this hotel management’s note, having just received a similar phone call in a different hotel a few days before. It took me a moment to recall that the request was for my frequent stay account number, not my credit card. Whew!

I’ve confirmed this ruse’s widespread existence with police and hotel security chiefs in several countries. Although aware of the ploy, not all properties believe in taking a proactive approach. As always, it’s up to us travelers to look after ourselves.

“Somehow they get the guest’s name, call the room, and explain that they are from either room service or the front desk and need the credit card number again,” the security director of a major hotel group told me.

“We never connect calls if the person calling can’t say the name of the guest he/she is looking for,” said the security manager of another hotel chain.

But a phone-pharming data-miner can sequentially call every room in a hotel once he knows the phone number convention. Most of us, as generally trusting (and/or oblivious) humans, will miss the fact that the data-miner on the phone fails to address us by name. If he’s any good, he’ll get “the name on the card” just as easily as he gets every other useful tidbit, and I’d bet he gathers quite a few “profiles.”

Colon, Panama's second largest city.

“The mere mention of Colón sends shivers down the spines of travelers and Panamanians…”

—Lonely Planet on Colon, Panama

After the brutal armed robbery of 18 tourists in Nassau three weeks ago, and our naive trek through the world’s most dangerous city, Port Moresby, Bob and I have had muggers on our minds. For years, we’ve studied non-violent pickpockets and con artists, and advised travelers how to avoid becoming their victims.

Muggers, though, are a different breed, defined—by us—as those who use violence or the threat of violence in the course of robbery. Often drug-addicted and desperate, their behavior is unpredictable and not easily avoidable.

Ask your hotel staff and local hosts where it’s safe to walk, we say. Carry “give-up” money. Be compliant, give them your stuff. It’s impossible to know what these desperadoes are capable of. Beyond that, we didn’t have much to say about muggers.

That changed a few days ago, when Bob created an opportunity. We were visiting Panama’s second largest city, feared by the capital’s police as well as savvy expats.

Having heard how dangerous Colon is, I left my camera in the hotel and walked the streets with empty pockets. Bob brought a video camera and a collapsing monopod. Immediately, we were approached by many aggressive men who wanted to show us the sites. We waved them away until we met Gustavo and Carlos, gentle, low-key men. Both scramble for whatever odd jobs they can find: construction, painting, roof repair, escorting visitors to the Gatun Locks.

Gustavo

Gustavo, 38, spoke decent English and was more than pleased to fulfill Bob’s challenge: take us to the most dangerous streets, and introduce us to some banditos. “Nobody wants to see my city,” Gustavo sighed later. Everybody just wants to go to the locks, or to the mall to buy t-shirts.”

I admit to starting this adventure a little uneasily. We don’t speak Spanish, for one thing. And I remembered the scary vulnerability we experienced when two knife-wielding thieves in Peru took us in a taxi to a “quiet place” of their choosing. And the way we were followed and scrutinized in Valparaiso, Chile, when we were pretty sure we saw the flash of a blade. And the gangsters we met in Panama City. Not to mention the emotional aftermath of Nassau’s 18 armed robbery victims.

Had I read what one Colon tourism site had to say, I probably wouldn’t have gone at all:

“Though exaggerated, Colon’s reputation throughout the rest of the country for violent crime is not undeserved, and if you come here you should exercise extreme caution—mugging, even on the main streets in broad daylight, is common. Don’t carry anything you can’t afford to lose, try and stay in sight of the police on the main streets, and consider renting a taxi to take you around, both as a guide and for protection.”

—Coloncity.com

That from a site promoting the city!

We trusted Gustavo instantly, although the city looked, uh, “dicey,” to say the least. He led and Carlos guarded from behind, both pushing bicycles. “Robbers will not be difficult to find,” Gustavo admitted, “They are everywhere. They live on my street.”

Colon’s gorgeous colonial architecture glowed under a hot sun, its faded Caribbean colors covered with graffiti. The place is crumbling. Potholed streets run with overflowing sewer water and heaps of trash. Cracked pavements and treacherous gutters vie for attention, with two-by-fours stretched across particularly rough stretches—inner-city balance beams.

“Hold this,” Bob said, passing me his monopod while he shot a little video. Not “Honey, you better stay home,” as many a husband might say. I gripped the photographic tool like a weapon, and later realized that it must have looked like one. Not a very nice visitor who tours a city wielding a police baton. Better leave her alone!

Gustavo pointed out the sights as we walked; sort of a walking tour of gangland central. Here’s a building used in a James Bond film shot last year. The men over there, they’re too dangerous. That street is very bad; we won’t walk there. This street is the home of three pandillas [gangs]. Colon has at least 50.

I looked at the blood newly splattered on my pants and shivered. Right… the butcher chopping chicken in the crowded market we passed through.

Colon kids

“Stay close,” Gustavo said. “No one will bother you when you’re with me. I know everyone.” Indeed, men, women, and children greeted him at every step, but he politely deflected them and focused on us.

“That guy’s a robber,” Gustavo pointed, and called him over. Explaining our mission, he spoke with such authority the thief had no choice but to comply. Bob tossed the camera to me as we stepped into a filthy alley. It reeked of pee. Above, a man watched us from a balcony. Water gushed from another balcony, higher up.

Dajanel and Bob Arno

It’s hard to believe that Dajanel [Die-a-NEL) is a mugger. His sweet face, slight build, and compliant behavior belied his vocation. He robs with a gun. He doesn't fire the gun, he told us—small comfort to his victims. Or huge comfort to his victims, I guess.

Dajanel likes to work as part of a structured threesome. One man grabs and holds the victim, one watches for police, one lifts the wallet. He scopes his marks as they come out of hotels, or as they buy drugs or girls. He looks for thick wallets.

Before a theft, Dajanel fortifies his nerves with drugs. We couldn't ferret out his drug of choice but, whatever it is, it grows his strength and power. When he seizes a wallet, he goes straight for the cash and dumps the rest. ASAP. He doesn't use credit cards, doesn't sell them on. Holding them is evidence against him, and commands a higher sentence if he's convicted of a crime.

Dajanel's only 26, but he's already spent three years in jail. As proof of his toughness, he pulled down the neck of his t-shirt to show off a thick scar on his shoulder—a deep knife wound that took three years to heal. He reminded me of Petter in Lima, who showed off his many scars, and Angel, in Panama City, whose little bullet wound was a badge of honor. Dajanel raised his knee to display the entry point of a police bullet, and another in his foot.

Gustavo translated like a pro throughout the interview, while Carlos watched my back, his bike arranged like a police barrier at the alley entrance. I was hyper-aware of the million-dollar camera in my flimsy fingers—it might as well have been worth that much. A steady stream of passers-by stopped to watch—to see what was in it for them? Carlos moved them on.

Three of Gustavo's children watch their older sister help Bob with a magic trick.

We walked on 6th Street after we let Dajanel go, where Gustavo lives. He brought us into his tiny, dark apartment, to meet his wife and four small girls. He has three older children elsewhere, he told us, though he’s only 38. Music was blasting in his apartment, as if he were force-feeding rhythm to his kids. Bob delighted them with a few magic tricks.

Exiting the long, dark hall to Gustavo’s interior home, we met Jaer, a 34-year-old robber.

Unlike Dajanel, Jaer prefers to work alone. That way, he doesn’t have to share money or worry about a partner who, if caught, might squeal. Unlike Dajanel he doesn’t use a gun; he steals anywhere, at any hour, but prefers early morning, because there are fewer cops around. He does not profile his marks. His weapon is speed, as in quickness, and brute force, as in a chokehold from behind. He oozes confidence and control. He doesn’t use drugs.

“Show me,” Bob said, no caution left to throw to the wind. “But not here. In private.” Yeah, where no one will see the mugger with his two rubes. Bob followed him down an alley only four feet wide to an interior courtyard the size of a tollbooth. “Now, show me,” he said.

Jaer backed up to the extent he could. So did I, attempting to get the whole scene on video, but even wide angle wasn’t wide enough in this close space. Jaer lent Bob his wallet, and stepped back over puddles of mud and water for a two-step running start.

Pow! The wallet was gone, and Jaer’d have been a block away had there been any place to run. He smiled with pride as a miniature gang of children passed through the shady space.

“Wow,” Bob said, “that’s the fastest steal I’ve ever seen! Again.” This time, Jaer surprised Bob with a chokehold, lifting the wallet in a one-handed plunge. The demo proved him experienced and capable.

“Now you,” Jaer requested, replacing his wallet in his pocket. After a suitable pause, Bob stealthily swiped it.

“I didn’t feel it,” Jaer said. “I’m impressed. Your way is much better. But speed is vital. I don’t think you could run away fast enough.”

He left Bob with a final word: “I’ll be talking about you tonight…”

*  *  *

What the U.S. State Department says about Colon:

“The city of Colon is a high crime area. … Crimes there are typical of those that plague metropolitan areas and range from rapes to armed robberies, muggings, purse-snatchings, “express kidnappings” from ATM banking facilities, in which the victim is briefly kidnapped and robbed after withdrawing cash from an ATM, and petty theft.”

—Panama Country Specific Information, 3/18/09, U.S. State Department

Credit: Rickard Ignell/Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Traumatic insemination is worth mentioning as a follow up to my post on bed bugs in hotels. Male bed bugs, ScienceNews reports, “ignore the opening to the female reproductive tract and inject sperm with a needlelike appendage directly through the outer covering of a mate’s body.” Yikes!

The report also explains that the male insects will happily mate with well-fed individuals of either sex until an accosted male sends out a special pheromone causing the aggressor to back off.

The pheromone can actually be detected by humans. It smells

a bit like almond, but not particularly pleasant. “Older people say that you used to be able to tell whose house had bed bugs because it had a peculiar smell.”

Graffiti in Stockholm: Lucky Thief proved to be an artist collective.

Beware, pickpockets are working here. That’s the first thing an international visitor sees when entering Sweden at Stockholm Arlanda Airport. Face level signs are pasted on the glass doors you pass through at immigration. Show me your passport. Welcome! Oh, and watch out for pickpockets—you’re in Stockholm!

For a big city, Stockholm has very little street crime. For a city with so little street crime, there sure are a lot of warnings about it. Maybe that’s why there’s so little!

Stealing in Stockholm

Digital platform signs in the city’s super-efficient subway system run frequent text warnings, in Swedish and English: watch your personal belongings, pickpockets are around.

Restaurants post reminders about watching your bags. I heard bus drivers on routes to Djurgården, where amusement parks are located, warn about pickpockets.

The Stockholm police have volunteers hand out little warning cards in the streets, and they thought it important enough to gather for a Bob Arno lecture last summer.

Is it a case of hysterics?

Graph from www.bra.se

Let’s not compare Stockholm with other cities. Let’s compare it with itself over time. According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, crime in general peeked in 1990, stayed rather constant for 16 years, and is now on a new rise. Specifically, bicycle theft is down and fraud is up. No surprise there. Burglary is holding steady, while assault is on the rise.

Reported robberies have remained fairly steady at about 9,000 incidents per year for the past ten. The Council includes shop and bank robberies in the figure, but says about 86% of the figure is robbery from the person. Remember, these are reported incidents. My research with Bob indicates that, as people lately tend to work hard and play hard, they also don’t sweat the small stuff. Who has time to file a police report?

Police handouts, multilingual.

I’ve already written about ATM crime, skimmers, and pseudo-cops in Sweden. The latest concern is criminal gang activity. Neighborhoods “have been hit by a wave of violent thefts recently.” Children 14-17 are conducting violent robberies in what seem to be initiation rites as they join the Black Scorpions. The Black Scorpions are starter gangsters who’ll graduate to become Black Cobras. Like Cub Scouts become Boy Scouts. The gang crept in from Copenhagen, and seems to be immigration-related.

Immigrants to Sweden, 1975-2008

The twin upward slopes of crime and immigration might lead one to believe that foreigners are perping on the Swedes. Ah, a politically sensitive theory. I can’t touch it.

Bottom line is that, for a capital city, Stockholm has very little street crime. The Swedes are rather trusting and naive and therefore make excellent victims, especially when they travel to places with significant street crime.

But speaking of Swedish victims of foreigners, here’s a vaguely related, rather humorous report. A woman in Thailand recently conned five Swedish men into sending her money “for a plane ticket to Sweden.” The five met at the airport arrivals hall when they found themselves alone together still waiting for the woman, who never showed up.