Thiefhunters in Paradise

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

If law enforcement can’t turn the trend, perhaps Bob and I can. Grandiose vision? As a two-person army out to fight street crime, we wouldn’t have a chance, we’d be laughable. But we’re not out to stop the thieves. We’re here to educate the public. We’ll turn the tide of loss from the back end. We also spread our knowledge base of current trends in thievery among the law enforcement agencies that deal with tourist crime. But it’s the ground level dissemination of information that has the greatest effect. We may be steering the horse by the tail, but we know it works.

Bob has spent a lifetime studying scammers, thieves, and con artists and their wicked ways. From Pakistan in the sixties, where leper pickpockets used emotions—fear and revulsion—as a means to their ends, to shortchangers in Vietnam, to destitute orphans in Peru, to modern day rogues in the capital cities of Europe and America, he has explored their methods and motivations.

Unlike police, criminologists, psychologists, or other researchers, Bob communicates with street thieves in their language; he can talk the talk and walk the walk because he is a thief himself. Bob is a thief who steals on stage and always returns what he takes. The techniques he learns from the thieves themselves he incorporates into his stage presentations. With the benefit of Bob’s backdoor perspective, we will give you the thief’s-eye version of thievery, connery, scamdom, and swindlehood; and more important, how to avoid becoming an unwilling participant.

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

“Hey! Hey! Hey! Get your fucking hand out of my pocket! You try to steal my wallet again and I’ll kill you!” The would-be victim slapped away the comforting hand of a middle-aged local. “No, you’re with him! I’m gonna call the cops.”

The victim, an American man, vocalized his outrage as the tram lurched and squealed along its track. His opponents melted into the crowd, impossible to discern from the legitimate passengers. Despite the team’s intricate choreography and precise techniques, they’d seemed as innocent and invisible as a white rabbit in a cotton harvest: beyond suspicion, even as they surrounded their mark. No one would detect the four functionaries of this tactical unit: the dip, his two blockers, and his controller. Not derelict losers, they looked like businessmen, like students, like men with respectable jobs.

The dip carried a jacket. His thieving hand worked concealed beneath it, first fanning the tourist, a feather-like pat-down designed to locate the leather, the wallet. The blockers positioned the mark, turning him, impeding his progress, expertly taking advantage of the physical contact natural in any tight crowd. Leaning into him, they caused his distraction, subtly directing his attention away from the dip’s delicate work. A few steps away, the controller watched for cops and overly alert bystanders. Of the four, he alone was shifty-eyed. When the victim exploded, it was the controller who stepped in to defuse the situation. If it hadn’t been for a sudden sway of the tram, the team would have succeeded, as they do in thirty-five percent of their efforts.

Now, busted, they pushed through the standing crowd toward the doors at the other end of the tram. At the first stop, the thieves made their escape. Bob and I hopped off after them.

This scene, in endless permutations, is repeated thousands of times every day. The victim of choice is the tourist, rich beyond reason in the eyes of thieves, who employ methods as subtle as stealth and as brutal as mugging to effect the transfer of wealth. Theft from tourists is on the rise and, unfortunately, it’s becoming increasingly violent, more and more organized, and harder than ever to fight.

Preface, part-d, Travel Advisory

Bob and I contend that the crimes of street thieves, so often dubbed “petty,” are not that at all. First, tally the sheer number of them, particularly in favorite tourist cities: hundreds of incidents per day are reported to police. How many go unreported? Our research indicates that numbers are two or three times greater. Secondly, consider the personal and practical impact on victims. The monetary loss, the complications of replacing documents, the fear of further repercussions such as replication of identity, all these add up to an experience that isn’t soon forgotten. Add to that the indirect costs and hours required by law enforcement, not to mention diverting officers from more serious work, plus costs involved in prosecuting and jailing these so-called petty thieves.

Pickpockets and property theft are the travel industry’s dirty little secret. Understandably, no one wants to talk about them. Not the travel magazines with advertisers to placate, not the boards of tourism with countries to promote, not travel agencies or packagers with clients to enthuse, or cruise lines with a carefree ambiance to emphasize. And why should they? It’s just a petty crime.

Who is to reveal the status quo but a stage-stealing Swede and his fancy accessory?

Because it represents our passion, as well as an integral part of our career, we’ll continue to skulk underground and pound the pavement. Sometimes though, on sweltering trains so crowded I’m pressed like a daisy in a dictionary, I’ll question our endeavors and the gritty reality of mingling with outlaws. Then we’ll catch a thief. We’ll capture a slick steal on tape, which will later be used to illustrate our presentations to the public and help train police departments. We’ll discover some new artifice, an old trick twisted to exploit the moment. And that will be our satisfaction.

As you’ll learn in these chapters, serious reductions in these crimes will not be due to law enforcement, no disrespect to them. It will be through travelers’ smarter stashing and raised awareness. Personal security is an art, not a science. Once you know the risks, you can adjust your awareness and the level of your security precautions. Thus prepared, you’ll turn your travel concerns into travel confidence.

Preface, part-c, Travel Advisory

“Criminals are born, not made. Delinquency is a physiological abnormality.” So said Cesare Lombroso, Italian professor of forensic medicine and psychology, in 1875. After meticulous measurements as a sort of computerless biometrics, he described “the delinquent” as a “precise anthropological type” who could be recognized by his physical attributes. If only! From our descriptions and photos, you’ll see that rogues range from infants to the elderly, from the shifty-eyed to the doe-eyed. But for their inappropriate behavior and possibly a telltale “prop,” they’re all but impossible to pick out of a crowd.

Their modus operandi vary tremendously, too, and have become the basis for my own classification of street thieves. Those in the largest category, the opportunists, require a fool for a “mark.” That may sound a bit harsh, but opportunists are looking for an invitation to steal. Give them a bit of a challenge and you needn’t be their victim. They’re quick to distinguish the vigilant from the vulnerable.

Thieves in my next category, the strategists, are also easy to thwart. They create their own opportunities, and make participants of their victims. You, the savvy traveler, will simply refuse to participate.

Con artists make up my third category. To these, the victim willingly gives money for supposed value. But the victim here is driven by greed. He’s looking for a windfall, a deal too good to be true, inexplicable treasure fallen from heaven. For this victim, greed trumps reason and leads to loss.

I do not mention muggers. These are terrorist thieves who use violence or the threat of violence. Some are armed, or pretend to be armed, equally frightening to the victim. They’re crude, smash-and-grab desperadoes whose advantages are speed and isolation. We can only advise trying to avoid them by staying out of dark, isolated, and dangerous areas. Ask locals about no-go zones. We also recommend keeping easy “give-up” cash in your pocket, and submitting to their demands, whatever they are. Never resist a mugger.

Preface, part-b, Travel Advisory

I tried to imagine the scenario: Kharem would slip his fingers into the pocket of some hapless tourist and we’d surround him with cameras and complicity. Would we root for his success? Applaud afterwards? A few days earlier, I was filming Kharem as he tried to steal from three different individuals. How was that any different? I hadn’t realized it was Kharem, but I’d certainly recognized the pursuit of purloinery.

At our shows and lectures, audience members occasionally ask us if we stop pickpockets before they actually take something. Or they ask why we don’t shout out and warn potential victims. We squirm while defending ourselves because we do feel bad about letting it happen—or possibly happen—when we might have saved someone the money and trouble involved with the loss of a wallet.

But over the years we’ve received thanks from thousands of people: those who are now aware and informed and travel with confidence, and those who have foiled thieves after having seen us. The footage that Bob and I collect is seen by hundreds of thousands of people, millions when you count television, and it is shown not as entertainment, but as prophylactic.

We’re not entirely comfortable speaking respectfully to known thieves, laughing with them, and pretending to be friends with them. Respect, though, is what we believe opened Kharem to us. When we ask ourselves why he spoke with us, why he demonstrated his criminal craft, why he revealed his outlaw guts, we come to only one conclusion. We believe he treasured our attention and respect. He reveled in it. He blossomed in it.

I can think of a sappier story if you want the mawkish plot of a liberal: lonely, impoverished, immigrant outcast who lacks documents, education, and job skills is reduced to robbing tourists for his very survival. No family, no friends, no future, no reason to care what happens. A sensitive, poetic fatalist. Until his tragic trajectory is diverted by an angel dropping out of the sky in the shape of a filmmaker.

You think?

Nonsense.

Neither did he talk for money.

Preface, part-a, Travel Advisory

If Bob’s and my first priority is putting pickpockets and con artists out of business, our second is to encourage international travel. Nothing would disappoint us more than to learn that we discouraged a potential traveler’s journey. Travel opens the mind and broadens the perspective. It’s the ultimate supplement to education. Plus, it’s fun.

This book is the culmination of ten years of intensive research in the streets of the world. Our hunt has taken us through more than 80 countries on six continents, to countless islands, and through the grit and glamour of cities from Cairo to Copenhagen, from Mombasa to Mumbai. In the places people love to visit most, distract theft, con games, credit card scams, and identity theft are rampant.

Bob and I are stalking a moving target. We haunt the public frontiers where tourist and street thief collide ever so lightly, ever so frequently. We don’t go off searching among the dim, deserted corners of a city; we merely join in the tourist parade, visit the guidebook highlights, and lurk where the crowds are. There, hovering near the tourist buck, waiting for or making opportunity, can be found the thieves, swindlers, and con artists. And, very close, anonymous as sightseers in a tour group, we stand, cameras aimed.

After we observe a thief in action, we usually try to interview him (or her, of course). Because Bob speaks many languages, because he has “grift sense,” that undefinable faculty for the con, and because he can absolutely prove himself to be a colleague, the thieves talk. Some remain reticent, but most seem to enjoy our chats. Some refuse to speak on camera, others don’t mind at all. Kharem, a thief we found at work several times over the course of a year, is one who spoke openly with us, demonstrated his techniques on video, and arrived promptly for a meeting scheduled a week in advance. When we finished our third interview with him, Kharem had a surprise suggestion for us.

“Now I will steal and you can film me. I want to be the star of your movie,” he offered.

“That’s impossible, Kharem. We work on stage, not on the street. We cannot be part of real stealing. We cannot be with you knowing that you’ll steal.”

“I think he smells a big payment,” our interpreter, Ana, said in English to us.

“We can split three ways,” Kharem said, dispelling that theory.

“It would be great footage…” Bob mused. “But we can’t. No way.”

I agreed.

“What if he gives it back?” Ana tried.

“I don’t think he’d understand that concept.”

“He’s going to steal anyway,” Ana said. “If not now, later. Whether you’re watching or not.” She was well aware of the crime statistics in her city.

“No. We’d be accessories. We’re treading morally murky water as it is. We have to draw a line and this is definitely it.”

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

Criminal limits are inside a person. How else can I explain why I cannot shoplift? I can’t steal a candy-bar from a supermarket, but I can walk in and rob the place with a gun.

—Frank Black
Reformed burglar, 21-year prison inmate

The following posts will be largely from our book, Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams While Traveling. (Please excuse the title. I know, it sounds like a weather report, or a traffic report. Kudos to the publisher.) I intend to intersperse book excerpts with reports of current research, stories of thieves not in the book, travel topics, and whatever else might be on my mind. Comments are welcome.

—Bambi