Thiefhunters in Paradise

St. Petersburg, a few weeks later—We loaded ourselves with video equipment this time, and headed straight for the Metro corner. Having spoken with the gang three weeks earlier, we were afraid to get too close. We wanted to observe them in action without being noticed. I found an excellent location just across the canal from the Metro entrance, a perfect stake-out spot with a convenient cement chunk I could hide behind when necessary. Bob wandered, undisguisable, wishing for a height reduction.

Instant gratification! (No, not Bob getting shorter.) First I noticed two of the gang leaning on the canal wall, watching the heavy flow of people going into and out of the Metro.

I recognized others loitering in the doorway and on the street corner. Most of them seemed to get or make frequent phone calls. They often disappeared from view, melting into the crowd, ducking into the station, or being obscured by traffic.

Suddenly, they’re off and running. I follow with my video camera. The victim doesn’t have a chance. Six gang members surround him. It’s impossible to see them all at any one moment, but on the video (see Part 2), you can see them dance around the mark like a Russian ballet. Two men maneuver themselves in front of him, impeding his progress. Four others are behind and beside him. Then, to buy more time, the largest of the team, in the gray t-shirt, spins around and shoves his weight against the victim’s chest and stomach, nearly doubling him over.

It was impossible to determine if anything had been taken. I had to choose who to follow with the camera and I chose to follow the thieves, who quickly dispersed, then regrouped. I don’t know how the victim reacted seconds later. He immediately left my field of vision.

I got another pursuit on film, but it ended behind an ice cream kiosk that blocked my view. I wasn’t far away, but I was stationary, with a canal in front of me. I got lots of shots of the thieves positioning themselves among the crowds crossing the street.

Meanwhile, Bob wandered through the danger zone. He watched other thieves display their well-practiced choreography. They also employed the Russian sandwich, with a dropped piece of paper, a bend, a block, and a partner’s pluck from behind.

Mohammed is fine. He’s recovered from his near-arrest and is friendly with us again. We didn’t dare ask him to interpret for us again. But we met a nice Russian woman at the black market who teaches English…

This is Part 5 of 5. Part 1 —  Video in Part 2

“If it weren’t onstage, it would be illegal” —The Montreal Gazette

Montreal—Our new show, Hoodwinked, opened July 15 in the Gesù Theatre as part of the Just For Laughs Festival. We had three performances, all to nearly packed houses, and all received instant standing ovations.

We were all thrilled, having come together only three days earlier to put the show together. In fact, we considered these performances our technical rehearsals.

“Prepare to be conned” is the show’s subtitle. The cast is made up of four consummate con artists who manipulate, baffle, and social-engineer the audience until they don’t know what to believe. But let me emphasize: this is not a magic show.

Take Richard Turner: cheat, card mechanic, card sharp. To be honest, card tricks bore me to to death. What Richard Turner does is riveting. His control of the cards is other-worldly, especially since he allows his audience to shuffle and cut the deck as much as they want to. He deals a winning hand at will, places the queen in three-card-monte exactly where you know she isn’t, and flips out aces from portions of the deck chosen by an audience volunteer. Simply amazing. How does he do it? “When the gambling gets heavy,” he says, “I cheat.”

Richard is famous for his dirty dealing, which he demonstrates in the show. In fact, he demonstrates it with a card face up on the deck, so you see it stay there while he appears to deal normally. Two video cameras capture his work and project it on a huge screen behind him. Still sounds so-so? Richard demonstrates a perfect faro shuffle, in which he neatly splits the deck into equal halves (one-handed), then interweaves the two halves exactly every other card. His feel for the cards is barely believable. Pick a number, he tells his audience volunteer, holding out a deck with one hand. She says 14, or 27, or 36, or whatever. The instant she says it, he twists a chunk of the deck out, one-handed. Count them, he demands. Incredible.

Richard, a fifth-degree black belt in karate, is blind. At least that’s what they say in Hoodwinked. Is this just another con? If it’s true, you’d never know it by watching him and he largely ignores the fact himself. If it is a fact, of course. I had the enormous pleasure of spending a week with him and I can tell you, his life has been more colorful than anything the rest of us have seen. In Hoodwinked, he weaves a few anecdotes into his card work, so that jaws drop over his manipulation and control of the cards, and stay dropped throughout.

For me, a card scoffer, Richard Turner is a highlight of Hoodwinked. Of course I’ve seen Bob Arno a million and a half times. And the show wouldn’t be possible without Todd Robbins and Banachek. All the other cast members are worthy of their own articles; I will get to their stories later.

Hoodwinked will tour the East Coast in November, with big things scheduled for 2009.

St. Petersburg— “They think I robbed you,” he said.

By then it must have been obvious to the cops that we were not Mohammed’s victims, or anyone else’s, either. But they’d created such a melee they couldn’t let go, didn’t want to believe there really was no problem. Finally, they left with a warning to Mohammed, who was so shaken he just collapsed onto his low stool and hung his head. He wouldn’t look up at us so we left him, thinking he was angry with us for getting him involved.

So the cops had seen us and Mohammed together with a gang of known thieves. Why, then, did they arrest the local underdog, instead of the criminals? In St. Petersburg, where the police are pitifully paid (about 2000 rubles/month, US$70 at the time), payoffs are their bread and butter. Officers routinely roam the streets collecting 100 rubles ($3+) here and there, from unlicensed merchants selling caviar or souvenirs. Pickpockets pay police too. They buy a piece of property for a limited time span. This allows many thieves to work, and keeps them in their own territories. Vladimir, a pickpocket we met some years ago, had a one-hour-a-day claim on a short segment of Nevsky Prospekt. The Mongolian gang seems to own the Metro station corner.

When thieves are caught, they pay 700 or so rubles ($23) to the police and are let go. It’s well known, Mohammed’s friend Anton told us earlier, that police are corrupt and will take bribes for anything. They can be seen on the streets looking for unlicensed merchants in order to shake them down instead of looking for thieves. Why would they arrest thieves? The system works well the way it is, and rich foreign tourists fund it.

Tangentially interesting, Anton, who also works at the art market, told us that when a person is picked up for being drunk, the police steal everything from him: money, watch, and jewelry. Then they put the drunk in a cold shower to wake him up and put him out on the street. If the citizen complains of being robbed, the police claim he must have lost his belongings while he was drunk. Anton described his father’s clever hiding place for cash. He slits the inside of the waistband of his jeans and slips folded money inside. When he’s drunk and shaken down, the police don’t find the money, but take everything else.

This is Part 4 of 5. — Part 1

St. Petersburg— “Pseudo-cops!” we thought: bandits who pretend to be police. We’re about to be robbed! At the same time, I thought: no, we’re about to be robbed by real cops of the corrupt variety. The four of us in that deserted alley made a huge commotion.

Bob pointed to the entrance we had come from and shouted “You’re police? Okay, over there!” I shouted “in the public area!” and they shouted in Russian. We had no idea what they wanted. We carried a $1,000 digital still camera, but no video equipment and, thankfully, no hidden video equipment, which might have been considered illegal.

As our captors escorted us back to the art market alley entrance we heard the bleeping of police radios and saw police equipment under their shirts. Yet, knowing they were real cops did not put us at ease. We were still four agitated, confused, and rather scared people, unable to communicate. My thoughts were, get to a public place so we won’t be ripped off; find Mohammed to translate.

The cops allowed us to lead them into public view, or they led us. Just outside the alley gate, in the art market, we saw Mohammed on the ground with a gun to his stomach. Four other plainclothes cops had him surrounded. Everyone was yelling and a crowd had gathered. Mohammed was the only one capable of translating for us and he was beside himself, terrified and at gunpoint. As soon as we arrived he was hauled up and shoved against a wall, the gun still at his belly.

My reaction was to grab onto Mohammed. I hugged him, trying to show the cops that he didn’t do anything wrong to us, that he was our friend. Bob tried to reason with the cops, but none spoke English. Then six uniformed cops joined the fracas and our concern escalated. How far could this thing go, and what is it? For a few minutes, the uniforms were more interested in the plainclothes than in the civilians. With machine guns pointed, they demanded IDs from the plainclothes officers and scrutinized them intensely.

Mohammed had told us the previous day that because of his looks, he is frequently stopped and challenged by the police. With everyone still shouting and confused, including him, we couldn’t find out if this was one of those “challenges.” Why did Mohammed have a gun in his stomach? Why were we hauled into this business?

Bob dropped the name of an ex-KGB officer we know, with no idea where it would lead. Like a silent fart mysteriously clearing a room, the officers scattered and disappeared. The only Russian sounds we could dredge up turned out to be powerful, indeed.

“What is the accusation?” I asked Mohammed, several times before he quieted and paid attention.

“They think I robbed you,” he said.

This is part 3 of 5. Part 1 — Video in Part 2

St. Petersburg— …we were surrounded by five hostile faces. Shaking inside, we stood firm until the men stalked off. Bob and I crossed the street to photograph the scene of the crime. Since the gangsters were still at work, I ducked into a shop doorway to be less obtrusive. Two men followed me in. They were thieves ready to snatch my camera, so I threw its strap over my head, pirouetted in the vestibule, and stepped back onto the street. The suspicious pair trailed me out, gave Bob the once-over, and wandered off. It was a cosmetics shop I had entered, filled with only female customers.

We returned to the subway station with an ad hoc interpreter. Mohammed is a law student with a summer job selling paintings at the art market on Nevsky Prospekt. We’d met him the day before. He’s soft-spoken, a bit shy, black-haired and olive-complected; a Muslim Russian from the south of the country.

He was skittish about getting involved with a criminal gang, but in the end his curiosity got the better of him, or he couldn’t resist our pressure. Off we went to the Metro station, a block away. When we found them, all five predators were in the station lobby, watching for lucrative marks.

Here’s a bit of video. It’s confusing and hard to follow, but try. You’ll see the team of six Mongolian pickpockets at work outside the Metro station. It’s hard to spot them all. One wears a red hat, one a white hat, and the others are pointed out with arrows. You’ll see them start out fast after a victim, then go out of view. In the second sequence, all six surround a victim, then the biggest of them crashes into his chest to delay him. Then they turn and meet beside the canal to divvy up the swag.

Mohammed’s first timid overtures were rejected with disinterest. Then he used the words “Las Vegas,” and vor, Russian for thief, and the gangsters turned to look us up and down. A moment later we had them outside, and suggested we get out of the crowd. The eight of us walked a block away and around a corner, where there was less traffic.

By then Mohammed had warmed them up and the gang members were smiling and curious, though not comfortable. Bob got a two-fingered grip on the big guy’s wallet and gave him a little shove from behind, neatly extracting the wallet. That’s when they relaxed half a notch. We stood around small-talking for ten minutes, but nothing of substance was discussed. They claimed they throw away credit cards instead of using or selling them, but we’re not convinced. Mohammed said their Russian was not very good. Soon a well-dressed man with a briefcase joined us. “Professional,” one of the thugs said in English, and he made a gesture for pickpocket, stroking the back of the index finger with the tip of the middle finger.

You just tried it, didn’t you!

One by one, cell phones started ringing. I think the thugs were speaking with each other. A group of tourists paraded by, and two thieves caboosed them around the corner. Our conference dispersed, but ice had been broken.

Bob and I walked Mohammed back to the art market. He led us down a street parallel to Nevsky Prospekt, then cut through a long narrow alley to the back of the art market. After saying goodbye, Bob and I headed back into the alley.

Halfway through it, two scrawny young men came running up from behind us, shouting “Police!” They flashed ID at us. “Pseudo-cops,” we thought, bandits who pretend to be police. We’re about to be robbed!…

This is part 2 of 5. Part 1.

St. Petersburg— The beefiest of the five Mongolian thugs shoved his fist in front of Bob’s face, thrust forward his chin, and stared. Bob stared back and so did I. Two more brutes joined the first. One pointed to our camera and said “No!” The other swept his hand as in “get out of here, scram!”

Experienced at this sort of confrontation, we didn’t back down. That doesn’t mean we weren’t nervous and aware of the danger. We’ve been threatened before, not to mention spat upon and mooned. But pickpockets, by our own definition, are nonviolent. Sure, there are the unpredictable drug addicts desperate for money for a fix, but these five fixed us with alert and stone-cold eyes. They did not look harmless.

We’d spotted two of the gang within minutes of reaching Nevsky Prospekt, the broad boulevard of St. Petersburg. They stood on the corner of what might be the city’s busiest intersection, where tourists get their first glimpse of the magnificent Church on the Spilled Blood, a subway station upchucks clotted streams of humans, and tinny, battery-operated speakers screech the muffled pitches of Russian barkers selling canal cruises.

We picked the pair out of the crowd as we crossed the street toward them. They crossed and passed us, then u-ied and immediately separated, one in front, one behind us. The Russian sandwich. Instead of worry, we felt glee. Bob had a prop wallet stuffed with newspaper in his back pocket. Bait.

As Bob and I paused outside the subway station, the crew ditched us, ducked inside, and came out following a tourist. Bob managed to snap two blatant frames with a camera, one of which shows the gang leader looking straight into the lens as a partner shields a backpack for another’s grope.

Did they get anything? We don’t know because, as always, the thieves cover their moves. But a moment later…

This is part 1 of 5.      Next (with video)

A family visit to Stockholm turned into a media circus. How did they know we were in town? First was an interview for an article in the Sunday supplement of Aftonbladet, one of Sweden’s national newspapers (link coming when available). Then Bob (Arno, the criminologist) was asked to speak to Stockholm’s street cops and detectives. Halfway through his two-hour presentation on street crime, TV4 showed up for an interview and demo.

The tv news reporters had to wait an hour for us, while Bob and I analyzed some tricky footage of a bag theft in Stockholm’s main subway station. The subway surveillance cameras are excellent, with high resolution and enough frames-per-second. We recognized the finale of a version of the pigeon-poop ploy, but earlier footage of the set-up was no longer available. Video footage is only kept for a few days before it is destroyed. The department’s looseleaf “book of criminals” is thick with mugshots. Stockholm is not what it used to be, even just a few years ago. Sad.

We drove Bob’s 97-year-old father out to his country house on an island in the archipelago. The old man built the three houses on the property with his own hands, and has maintained them reasonably well until the last year or so.

The grounds have always been a loosely-controlled wilderness, but now the meadows of wild orchid, lilly-of-the-valley, lupine, and Swedish soldiers are overgrown with tall grasses that hide the colorful flowers. As we arrived, a huge male deer munching leisurely on the trees looked accusingly at us, as if we were the trespassers. Within arm’s reach of the car, it didn’t bolt until we aimed a camera at it.

The weather was glorious and the old man was happy to be at his “summerhome.” I picked handfuls of smultron, tiny wild strawberries, until I was dragged away. I find it excruciating to walk on such delicacies, but they cover the ground and there’s no choice. I brought home a tick, but didn’t find it until the next day.

My Swedish brother-in-law came to visit us in Las Vegas. While Bob and I were off on a trip, he decided to upgrade our garden. He drove our car to the local nursery to buy some plants. As he approached the nursery, driving slowly, the car was suddenly rushed by a gang of shouting Mexicans. My brother-in-law went cold, he told us later: cold sweat, pounding heart, racing thoughts. The Mexicans were all shouting as they surrounded the car. “If I stop, it’s all over,” my brother-in-law thought, “I’ll lose the car.” So he inched forward, knuckles white on the wheel, staring straight ahead.

The Mexicans fell back and my brother-in-law turned into the nursery, parking safely. He leaned back and let out a huge breath, wondering how this could happen, or almost happen, in Las Vegas, in broad daylight, in a busy street. He sat in the car for a few minutes, gathering his composure. As another car approached the nursery, he watched the scene repeat itself from a comfortable distance, and realized that these were men seeking work. Choose me!, they must have been shouting, in competition with each other. Let me dig your hole!

He now goes into hysterics remembering his misinterpretation of the incident.

It’s not for nothing that my brother-in-law calls himself a Swedish Okie and a country bumpkin. This is the man we brought to a Chinese restaurant once, who scrunched up his face and pulled “some trash” out of his mouth when eating a fortune cookie.

Who’s looking at you when you buy a coffee? It’s creepy, when you know all they can see.

At the World Game Protection Conference in Las Vegas earlier this year, where Bob was a keynote speaker, I saw SmartConnect’s live demo of actual video surveillance. The client we spied on was a coffee chain store at McCarren Airport. No surprise that I saw the employees and customers, but I also saw an image of each customer’s itemized receipt—as it was generated. I could see all stats pertaining to each transaction in real time, as if I were there. Did the cashier apply an employee discount to the sale? Did she leave the cash drawer open for more than x seconds? Just how many employee discounts did that cashier register today, anyway?

It was all there, laid out on one big screen, along with multiple video images of the employees and customers as they interacted. On a giant plasma display with almost life-size images, it truly felt like peeking over the shoulder of the employees.

In a quick visit to Rome last month, Bob and I found it pretty quiet on the streets, theft-wise. Granted, we only spent a few hours on the prowl, but given our 15 years experience thiefhunting in Rome, we know where to look. We usually find an eclectic mix of Italian, Roma, North African, and East European thieves, plus many we don’t speak to, many who won’t tell, and many who lie.

On this visit, we spent at least half an hour shadowing a mixed-gender threesome halfheartedly preying. As they trudged along the tourist trail, one of their members entered each souvenir shop along the way and stood among the customers. Another spent time among the postcard stands. They were an extraordinarily scruffy group, whose appearance certainly limits their access and proximity to targets. After a lethargic effort, they disbanded at a bus stop. We engaged two of them as they scattered, and learned that they were Polish.

Other than this group, we saw very few “suspects” in the Metro, on Bus 64, hanging around at the usual favorite bus stops, or on the streets. Termini, the main train station, was littered with dodgy characters, as usual, but we didn’t linger, preferring to survey the scene outside the station.

Are Italians finally fed up enough to do something about crime? At least crime committed by immigrants, it seems. A couple of telling surveys reported in The Guardian hint to a new, anti-immigrant climate in Italy, and especially anti-Gypsy.

81% of Italian respondents said they found all Gypsies, Romanian or not, “barely likeable or not likeable at all”, a greater number than the 64% who said they felt the same way about non-Gypsy Romanians.

and

Romanians were among the 268 immigrants rounded up in a nationwide police crackdown on prostitution and drug dealing this week, after new prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s likening of foreign criminals to “an army of evil”.

Word has been out on the street for some time. “Jaga” and Ana, a Romanian pickpocket couple we interviewed at length in Rome in 2003, told us they were planning to move to Spain, where it is easier to live and to conduct their business. They are not the only thieves to express this sentiment, which helps explain why Spain has such a preponderance of pickpockets.

Pisa, too, was empty of the sticky-fingered women and children we usually find at the train station, bus station, and all around the Piazza del Duomo. Locals there said they had noticed the pickpockets’ disappearance about a month ago.

But just when we thought Italy might be cracking down on crime, we heard last month’s terrible story of the American couple served drugged cappuccino in a Rome train station, where they were then robbed. Upon awaking, the man stumbled onto the tracks and was killed by a train. The article continues:

Gangs using narcotic spray to carry out train robberies are also on the rise in Italy, police said. The gangs board sleeper trains and drug passengers in couchettes before hopping off at stations with valuables.

I tend to think the crime lull we sensed in our short survey of Rome’s previous hot spots was actually an anomaly. Or the balloon has been squeezed and the thieves are just elsewhere. I hope that we soon find another opportunity to re-investigate Rome.

Sadly, though, porcini season will be over by our next visit. There is nothing like porcini pizza, especially in Pisa.