Bambi Vincent – Page 21 – Thiefhunters in Paradise

The Pickpocket’s postcard trick

The postcards are pulled away along with the wallet.

kharem-2001 — Kharem the day we first found him in 2001.

Kharem is another opportunist who doubles as a minor-league strategist. When we first met him, he was prowling the perimeter of a breakdance performance near the top of La Rambla. He carried a black plastic bag to cover his hand as he unzipped the duffel-bags of spectators.

“My job is pickpocket. I have this job seventeen years,” he said in English, over coffee in a little restaurant, then launched into French, telling us that he worked in Paris for twelve years until he was expelled from France. He left a little girl there.

Postcards are offered as if for sale to distracted diners. They're briefly held over a wallet, cell phone, or camera. — Postcards are offered as if for sale to distracted diners. They’re briefly held over a wallet, cell phone, or camera.

Kharem raised the plastic bag from his lap and put it on the table. He had a “unique technique,” he explained, his own method, something he invented and believes he is alone in using. He opened his plastic bag to show a handful of Barcelona postcards. He fanned the postcards and extended them to me across the table, as if offering them for sale. Then he withdrew them, leaned back in his chair with satisfaction, and tipped up the cards. Beneath them, he’d swiped my empty coffee cup.

He does this on La Rambla, Kharem told us with pride, where he approaches diners at outdoor cafés. When he removes the fan of postcards, he takes a wallet or camera with it.

Apparently, Kharem doesn’t realize that this is a fairly common technique used in internet cafés. Websurfers, intent on their email or gaming, often set a wallet, credit card, or cellphone on the desk in front of them, beside the keyboard. Perhaps Kharem did invent the postcard trick, but he’s not alone in using it. This “unique technique” vanishes so many valuables from right under noses that many internet cafés flash warnings on screen.

That’s how Jennifer Faust, of Canada, lost her wallet. She had it next to her keyboard at Easy Everything internet point on La Rambla. Jennifer, though, had filled out our Theft First Aid form, and therefore easily canceled her credit card accounts. Still, in the hour that passed while she fetched her Theft First Aid sheet, about $100 had been charged to one of her cards. This particular internet point, now called Easy Internet, has over 350 terminals in long rows, and the facility is open to anyone who cares to wander in. On our visits there, we spotted several teams, at different times, carrying packs of dog-eared postcards.

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Seven: Scams—By the Devious Strategist

Interview with Kharem
Kharem: Confessions of an Airport Thief
Kharem: Multi-talented Thief

Summer Scams to Avoid

Thiefhunters in Paradise. Empty pockets. 404

Are you going to London for the Olympic games this summer? Are you going to Europe? Are you going anywhere? Bob Arno urges you to be on your toes for these five summer scams and ripoffs, all of which are significantly on the increase.

1. The old pickpocket trick.

Pickpocketing’s been around since loincloths got pockets, but it’s increasing drastically in London and all across Europe. It has become more organized, with gang leaders buying or leasing youngsters under the age of legal responsibility. These kids, under pressure to bring in their “quota,” are more desperate than ever and attempt more brazen thefts.

Remedy: Keep your valuables under your clothing and be extremely vigilant at ATMs. Be sure your Social Security number is not in your wallet.

2. The pigeon poop pickpocket trick.

It’s hard to turn away a kindly good samaritan who wants to help you with a real—and vile—problem. You’ve been dirtied with something disgusting—often “pigeon poop” and lately actual (human?) feces. The con artists who secretly put it on you (or their partners did) use the physical contact of cleaning you off to clean you out. They pick your pocket or, if you set down your bag, run off with it.

Remedy: Sadly, we just can’t trust strangers approaching out of the blue. Antennas up!

3. Smart phone theft.

Smart phones are five times more likely to be stolen than wallets or cameras. (iPads are equally attractive, though harder to steal.) More than 50% of thefts in European capitals this summer are expected to be of smart phones—unless you help change the trend.

Remedy: Don’t leave your phone on a restaurant table or in an easy backpack pocket. Be aware that they are often swiped right out of users’ hands. Try to limit the personal information stored in the phone, and use a passcode.

4. Fake cops.

Naturally, we respect authority. A subset of nasty thieves we call “pseudo-cops” exploit this tendency by flashing fake badges and demanding to examine your cash. They claim to be looking for victims of counterfeiters and will take your cash “for examination,” or take a portion of it without you noticing.

Remedy: Do not show your cash or wallet. Police officers do not check the cash of random passers-by. Ask to take a good look at his badge and police ID. A real cop won’t mind at all. A pseudo-cop will move on to a more gullible mark.

5. Fraudulent websites.

Opportunists are working overtime online offering bogus Olympic tickets and nonexistent accommodations in London. London Metropolitan Police recommend buying Olympic tickets only from the official site, and have reported dozens of known fraudulent websites selling tickets and accommodations.

Remedy: Buy Olympic tickets from official vendors only. Buy accommodations from known and trusted sites or travel agents. Use a credit card to pay for your tickets and accommodations.

For full explanations on thefts, cons, and scams, start at the Thiefhunters in Paradise summary page.

fraud London pickpocket pseudo-cop scam thieves

Skimmers in bank doors

Ever use an ATM at a bank after hours? Was it inside a locked vestibule, where you had to swipe your bank card to unlock the door to enter the antechamber?

Chase Bank branches in and around Las Vegas have found card skimmers on their doors, enabling thieves to capture bank card info without tampering with the ATM at all. At the cash machines, all the thieves need are pinhole cameras to record the PINs.

And of course, alone and private in a locked bank foyer, who shields his PIN as it is poked onto the keypad?

Very clever thieves. Expect to find this latest technique at a bank near you.

More on skimmers:
Gas pump skimmers attached in 11 seconds.
Skimmers and credit card fraud.

bank credit card fraud skimmer thieves

Hotel oddity #27

Nice square sink at the stylish Empire Hotel in Manhattan. Delicious little apples, too.

Another example of form over function though. You can barely get your hands under the faucet, the sink is so shallow.

hotel odd

Outrunning Somali pirates

Never thought I’d be on a ship trying to outrun Somali pirates. Bob and I recently sailed across the Arabian sea in pirate-infested waters. Don’t worry, the captain said. We’ll do the most dangerous part at night. And we’ll darken the ship. Yeah, that made me relax.

It’s risky, but we’re prepared. It will be a race, the captain said, and we have speed! Also, our ship sits high above the water—that’s another advantage.

All the successful defenses against pirates have caused them to expand their territory. With so many drug-smuggling and human trafficking boats out there, it’s hard to determine which are pirates. The trick is to look for a ladder in the boats. But pirates tend to cover up their ladders. And how can you look for ladders at night?

As additional, film-worthy defenses, we had high-powered water hoses all rigged up, and sound cannons. Razor wire was coiled across the aft decks. We had 24-hour lookout teams and sharpshooters with their own coffee stations, and a commander from the Royal British Navy on board. We were tracked by multiple agencies.

Some ships travel through the Gulf of Aden in convoys but not us. No. Because we had speed, we’d dash through alone, in the dark. Some ships hang huge bundles of timber from the sides of the ship and cut the ropes if pirates try to board. We didn’t dangle timber bundles. We blacked-out our windows.

pirates

Mumbai flowerhead market

A small fraction of the flower market behind Dadar train station in Mumbai.

What’s in all the brilliant-colored baskets? Spice? Dye? After witnessing the most amazing train-boarding process ever, we descended from the “flyover footpath” and found ourselves behind the Dadar train station. As we cautiously came down the dilapidated stairs, we saw a vast, chaotic marketplace bustling in all directions and under the highway overpass.

It was a huge flower market with endless baskets containing every color, and shifting fragrances of marigold, rose, mint, carnation, jasmine, lilies-of-the-valley, something like lilac, and more. In places it just smelled very green. A few steps away the scent of sewage rose to overpower the flowers. Everything was overpowering: the noise, the smells, the colors, the commotion, the press of the crowd. Someone accidentally kicked my toe and made it bleed. I looked down at my dusty foot, a thin buffalo skin away from the filthy ground, and wondered what germs might find their way into the wound. The crowd swept me forward.

I sent home a few photos and got back questions that surprised me: “Who has the money to buy flowers? I can hardly spend the money to buy cut flowers. Do they just put them in vases in their homes? If it’s just for the wealthy, would it be their help going to make the purchases?”

The questions made me realize how much I take for granted. Because I’ve been to India so many times, and read so many books about and taking place in India, I forget that much of what I’ve learned isn’t common knowledge. Cow manure patties are used as fuel; betelnut is chewed with lime; the backs of all trucks say “Horn OK Please;” children call strangers “auntie” and “uncle;” and flowers are offerings to the gods. Even a man with only ten limes to sell will have three fresh flower heads on the corner of his spread-out rag, as an offering.

I’ve been fascinated by India since the late 70s, when I had daily lunches at a tiny Indian joint in Sunnyvale. That led to my study of Indian cooking and reading Indian cookbooks padded with details of regional family life in India. I’ve since read so many books about the country, both fiction and non-fiction, that I forget I might be a little more familiar with some of the country’s peculiar customs.

Over the hotel's front entrance. — Over the hotel’s front entrance.

So to answer those excellent questions: everybody buys flowers, rich and poor! Most of the flowers at the market are just the stemless heads. They’re strung in long or short strands in different combinations and offered to the god of choice. Every business, from the biggest bank to the humble man with only a box-top of moldy oranges to sell, displays a flower offering for luck. It may be an elaborate living chandelier of multicolored blossoms strung fresh and fragrant, or a single wilting marigold head. Scrutinize any truck or taxi and you’ll find a string of three fresh carnation or marigold heads and a couple of chili peppers swinging from the front bumper. The police car we rode in so many times this trip had on its dashboard a tiny altar to Ganesha draped with a string of orange flowers.

There’s often fruit, too. An orange, some sliced coconut, a few pomegranate seeds, whatever. So most of the flowers in the flower market are just the blossoms, ready for stringing. Workers sit on the ground everywhere stringing and selling pretty strands.

Our grubby hotel has a long strand over the entrance, rose petals on the lobby floor around candles, a little altar on the front desk, and a small heap of flowers on a front entry step.

bombay flower market mumbai street

Bob Arno on pattern recognition in thievery

When gearing up for a heist, thieves try to look relaxed and natural, but fail. In this, they send signals that trained security personnel can pick up. Still, business travelers are targeted by “breakfast thieves” in hotel lobbies and buffet areas.

Hear more on risk management in Bob Arno’s interview on Israeli Radio’s Goldstein on Gelt:

Bob Arno interview thieves

Hotel oddity #26

It wouldn’t strike me quite so funny if the brand were “Hindiware,” but it’s not.

Hindware.

Is there a more perfect name for a toilet? This one was in our grubby Mumbai hotel.

hotel odd

Rooftop chairs

Out the window of our Mumbai hotel room, across the street: a beautiful building of apartments, or maybe it’s another hotel. On the roof were two lounge chairs backed right up to the ledgeless edge. Who could sit in them? Lean back too far and it’s six stories down!

Lounge chairs on a Mumbai roof. — Lounge chairs on a Mumbai rooftop.

hotel India mumbai odd

Mumbai beggar family

Professional beggars who understand the power of eye contact.

I’m a sucker for adorable beggar children on the streets of Mumbai. It’s impossible to look away, not reach for a coin. Now that I understand that so many poor farmers from faraway villages flock to the big city in desperation after their crops fail, that they can’t find work, have families to feed and debts to pay, my heart breaks for adult beggars, too.

But begging is also an industry; one that can sometimes net a better living than many honest jobs—hard labor earning barely enough money for food. A Mumbai local explained that these professional beggars know exactly where to hang out for the biggest return. While the locals may offer a rupee, tourists will easily hand over a 100 rupee note. Though only worth about two U.S. dollars, it’s a windfall to the panhandler. This sort of begging is so lucrative, my friend told me, that it for some it is a career. He described seeing beggars don shabby costumes, muss their hair, and dirty their faces before going to work.

And there are begging scams, too, like the mothers-with-babies (rented) who beg for milk powder, lead you to a nearby shop where you buy milk at an inflated price, and when you leave she returns the milk to the shop and splits the money with the shopkeeper.

Makes a person skeptical, even suspicious. And confused, because Mumbai has severe poverty, destitution, despair, and wretchedness. Heartstrings tugged, or legs pulled?

Beggars can be compelling. I fell for this family, a mother and her three boys, at Mumbai’s Dadar train station, in a chaotic crossroads like a Third World Times Square, an area far from any tourist zone.

The woman made a continuous loud honking noise by rubbing a stick on one side of a drum she carried hanging from her neck, and beating it on the other side. Meanwhile, her gorgeous painted boys turned their enormous eyes up to me. The boys had rope whips slung on their shoulders, wore bright skirts and anklets of bells. I was transfixed; couldn’t be bothered with a camera—I fumbled for coins. Bob, as always, had a video running.

Why the whips? Why the awful racket scraped on the drum? What’s on the woman’s head?

The heavy load on her head causes perfect posture and slow, elegant movements.

These are the Potraj people, seldom seen nowadays and said to be fast-vanishing. They are nomads who represent the goddess Kadak Lakshmi, or Mariai. When the Potraj are heard in the neighborhood, superstitious and religious women, of which there are many, run out and give alms. What is frightening about the ritual performed by the Potraj is the fierce self-flagellation practiced during trance-like dances to the “music” produced by the woman with the drum. A wonderful description of a child petrified by the mysterious Potraj is told by that child grown up. He called his nemesis the “boogoo-boogoo man,” and although he had nightmares about the Potraj as if he were a bogeyman, he refers to the sound of the scraping of the drum: boogoo-boogoo-boogoo-boogoo.

Watch the video if you dare. The sound may haunt you.

The male beats himself—hard—while his wife or mother stands by like a one-man-band and takes offerings. She balances a heavy wooden altar on her head, in which sits a statue of her goddess. Children begin as trainees at a painfully young age, and have their own little whips.

Disappearing into the crowd, the woman takes one last look at us.

I saw one of these Potraj in Chennai a few months ago. He was on a tea break. I didn’t notice if a woman was with him. I had no idea what he did, either. His colorful costume was arresting, and the long yellow rope whip slung over his shoulder fascinated me.

A Potraj on a tea break in Chennai last January.

beggar bombay children India mumbai street

PICKPOCKETS, CON ARTISTS, GANGSTERS, THIEVES, AND TRAVEL