Is there a more phallic kitchen tool on the planet? Or one more ridiculous?
You should see the thing in action! This is an espresso-maker for the coffee-obsessed traveler. To work it, you grab the black “head” and pump vigorously. I am not kidding.
Of course, first you need a source of boiling water, which sort of spoils its promise of convenience. You can’t just pull to the side of an endless desert road and pump out a shot of espresso; or whip one up on a beach blanket. But in a hotel room equipped with a water boiler, it makes a passable coffee with a nice crema. You need to carry around the coffee, sugar, and the right cups, too. Maybe even a grinder. It’s not my idea of convenient. For all its trouble and the extra stuff that must be carried, it’s not, in my opinion, trip-worthy.
But it sure is amusing to watch a man operate it. I don’t mind drinking the coffee, either.
In my previous post on theft from lobbies, I reported that the Hertz office had a sign on its door warning that thieves worked the interior of the office. The fact that the door was propped open, making the alert invisible or unnoticeable (and potentially letting the thieves in) may or may not cancel Hertz’s effort at due diligence.
I just found a story called Plan B for Spain (because it linked to Thiefhunters in Paradise), which cutely describes a brazen theft from an occupied rental car in Barcelona. The account relates a similar “CYA” warning of bag theft at the rental counter. However, the warning is meant to be found only once the renter is in the car, long after his exposure to that risk of theft. What’s the point? We-told-you-so? Victims must fume when they finally get into their car, minus a bag or two, and find that warning.
In his story, Peter Zingg wrote: “The first thing I noticed when getting into the car was a small notice placed on the dashboard (Europcar’s form E-20919) proclaiming in four languages:
ATTENTION
Organised gangs who rob rental vehicle users have been reported in the area. The most usual ways they act are:
Stealing luggage at the counter while the documents are being prepared and/or in the parking lots while loading or unloading luggage from the vehicle. PLEASE WATCH YOUR LUGGAGE AT ALL TIMES.
Puncturing the vehicle tyre. They then tell the driver from another car. When the driver stops, they “kindly” offer help to change the wheel and tack advantage to steal your belongings. PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT HELP IF IT IS NOT FROM THE POLICE OR CIVIL GUARD AND DO NOT STOP UNTIL YOU REACH A PETROL STATION OR POLICE STATION.
Do not leave or hand over the keys to your vehicle at any time, as there are cases of thieves ransacking houses or apartments and taking the keys and the vehicle and people passing themselves off as rental company employees and asking you for the vehicle keys. Remember that you remain responsible for the car and its keys until Europcar has taken reception of these. PLEASE KEEP THE VEHICLE KEYS WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES. KEEP THEM IN YOUR HOLDAY HOME’S SAFE WHEN YOU ARE OUT OR AT NIGHT AND DO NOT HAND THE KEYS OVER TO ANY PERSONS, EVEN IF THEY CLAIM TO BE AN EMPLOYEE. RETURN THE KEYS TO THE CAR HIRE OFFICE.
“CYA” warnings are meant to protect the company, not its customers. If corporations could sleep, would they be able to?
Purses and backpacks go missing at the worst times. Like, when they’re filled with cash, passports, cameras, medications, travel documents, and laptops. Like, when you’re far from home.
Last month, Ron and Sharon Dasil were renting a car in Barcelona. Very experienced savvy travelers, they took all the precautions. Sharon sat with their four suitcases and two backpacks while Ron stood at the counter in the tiny Hertz office near Sants train station. After resisting up-selling efforts by persistent employees, Ron finished the paperwork and asked for driving directions. To make notes, Sharon joined him at the counter for three minutes, max. When she returned to her chair, her backpack was gone.
The office was only about a 12-foot square; the two employees faced out toward the door. When Sharon exclaimed that her bag was gone, one of the employees took a few steps to the door and closed it, pointing to a sign that the Dasils had not seen: “guard your stuff, thieves are around,” or something to that effect.
Had someone been watching from outside, waiting for the office’s only customers to turn their backs? Was it pure flukey timing? In such a small space, why hadn’t the employees noticed the arrival of a new person? Wouldn’t they greet a potential customer? If thieves are around, why was the door propped open?
These are questions the couple is asking the police and the Hertz headquarters. They also wonder if there was some complicity or collusion between the Hertz agents and the thief. “One of them bent under the counter for a while. He could have been texting someone,” Sharon worried.
The four men who own the luggage at left are far out of sight at the front desk.
At about the same time, Paul Hines was checking into the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum Hotel on Cromwell Road in London. He and his wife piled their luggage next to some chairs in the lobby, with their backpack on top. Mrs. Hines sat with the bags while Mr. Hines checked in. Mrs. Hines was briefly distracted when she noticed a man in the lobby with his fly open. That was all it took. The backpack was gone.
This gaping open purse was ignored for more than ten minutes while its owner checked in.
Who was the man with the open fly? An intentional distraction? Or just a staff member or hapless guest? Holiday Inn staff claimed to have the theft on video, but wouldn’t reveal much else to the Hines’s. Neither were they very helpful after the incident. They marked the location of the police station on a map, but didn’t get a taxi for Mr. Hines, who had no cash for a cab. He walked there and back again in the rain.
Both the Dasils and the Hines’s lost a lot in their backpacks. Both couples spent considerable holiday time filing reports, canceling credit cards, replacing passports, etc. While the Dasils, frequent travelers, took care of the theft business then got back to their adventure, Mr. Hines still seemed angry and frustrated several days later, when I spoke with him.
He could have put his bag anywhere. He put it behind his chair; not only out of his sight, but out of his companions' sight, too.
Now you see it, now you don’t. We all know to guard our stuff, but it’s worth remembering how quickly these thefts happen, and how frequently. The opportunist thief is lurking, waiting for you to drop your guard. The strategist thief turns your head himself, with some devious distraction or other.
Lobby employees don’t know whose luggage is whose. They don’t know every guest or customer. They are not luggage guards—not even the doormen are.
How exactly are purses and backpacks stolen, right out in the open? The technique usually involves a sport coat or jacket. We know some thieves who use an empty garment bag. The thief simply drapes the cover over the object of his desire and walks off with the goodies hidden underneath—often barely breaking stride. Bob Arno has done this many times on television.
I’ve heard about a hundred too many stories like these. Now I’m calling on you, readers, to help put an end to lobby theft. Watch your stuff. Keep a hand on the heap, or some other body contact with your bags.
Guests sit with their luggage, waiting for rides. Some are waiting to check in.
A man walks quickly through the lobby. He doesn’t notice when his wallet drops to the floor. A guest sees the wallet fall, runs over to pick it up, and chases after the man to return it.
Nice distraction, isn’t it?
On returning, the guest’s backpack is gone.
What could be the purpose of a motion-detector inside a hotel room? Is this a new trend?
This one, in our room at the new Mandarin Oriental in Barcelona, blinked madly whenever we moved. It was a little creepy. I looked around for a hidden video camera.
When I asked reception staff, they explained that the motion sensor allowed them to determine occupancy in case of an emergency. This didn’t make sense to me; an occupant could be incapacitated, overcome by smoke in a fire, for example, or knocked unconscious in an earthquake.
I wrote the hotel, and its Director of Engineering & Loss Prevention replied promptly:
The motion sensor is part of the Inncom-Clipsal guestroom comfort system.
When the guest leaves the guestroom after 20 minutes inactivity the system goes to lighting off and A/C to set point.
When the guest enter in the guestroom the motion sensor activates all lighting memory scenario and A/C to last selected temperature.
That makes sense. And it explains my earlier post, too. In fact, I received two interesting explanations simultaneously. The Mandarin Oriental’s, and a comment from Tom. Tom has a different theory, but added “you’d probably hear claims of being able to report occupancy to firefighters, emergency responders, etc.” Which is exactly what I first heard.
Until they become commonplace (if they do), it’s probably not a bad idea for hotels using these gizmos to post a little note in the room explaining the purpose of them, given the intrusive sense of spying the observant but uninformed guest might feel. On the other hand, the proliferation of notes and commandments in hotel rooms has been irritating me lately. “Watch your step,” “test water temperature,” “towels on the floor,” even pictures of items not to be flushed.
The Mandarin Oriental in Barcelona is a spiffy joint, I might add, in an excellent location.
What is this? Anyone have a clue? It was mounted on the inside of our Westin Hotel room door.
I know, I could have asked hotel management. But you know—you check in late, catch an early flight the next morning… There’s not always time to satisfy curiosity.
A tour of the muti market, where witchdoctors sell traditional medicine.
South Africa—It was somewhat of a shock to find nothing but white lines on asphalt in the place we knew we left a van. We couldn’t help but wonder whether our minds were slipping and the van stood undisturbed in a forgotten location. But there it wasn’t, high noon and sixty feet from the entrance of Rustenburg’s busiest supermarket. We stood two and a half hours, groceries dripping and spoiling, staring morosely at our empty parking space as we waited for the South African Police. They never bothered to show up.
So the van was stolen; we shouldn’t have been surprised. We’d read in the local papers how often these vehicles disappear into the taxi trade, and our own experience had provided us with enough warnings. Once we’d returned from an hour in a Johannesburg mall to find the ignition busted by a would-be thief who’d easily entered the vehicle but couldn’t get it started, presumably due to the special electronic safety key system with which the van was equipped. Weeks later in the same parking lot a less-skilled perpetrator was foiled, ruining only the door lock. Then, the week before Christmas, we were jabbed by the foul fingers of crime in a more personal manner.
Winding up a long stay in South Africa, we had packed a few boxes to mail home. The year had seen a natural accumulation of files, notes, photos, and clothing purchased to shield us from a winter for which we were ill-prepared. Though we weren’t sending anything of major value, we were distressed to learn that it wasn’t possible to insure any mail to the U.S. We never completely trust international mail, especially in nations rife with poverty. In addition to sloppy and careless handling, we worry about stamp-stealing, prevalent in many parts of Africa. Postal workers are known to steam stamps off envelopes, discard the letters, and earn pennies for the stamps. But as we couldn’t justify sending everything air cargo, we packed up four twenty-pound boxes of a year’s slough.
In Rustenburg, an hour’s drive from where we lived, we rushed to the post office, as we knew it closed for lunch at one. We parked at the busy entrance, directly in front of the public telephones. I waited in the van with the parcels while Bob went to buy tape for a final touch on the labels. I was engrossed in Newsweek when a sullen man materialized at my open window. He asked where some street or shop was; I couldn’t quite understand, as he spoke in the submissive, barely audible mumble so many South Africans used. I asked him several times to repeat himself—we were always so sensitive about being friendly and courteous to everyone there.
A couple of (former?) thieves describe the powers of the bark and animal-part medicines.
Meanwhile, a second man appeared at the open driver’s side window and asked another unintelligible question. With a stranger on either side of me, open windows, keys dangling in the ignition, I felt frighteningly vulnerable. I casually lowered a hand to my bag and shoved my watch wrist down and out of sight, trying to look at both men at once while politely saying I don’t know, sorry, no. I was definitely nervous.
Both the lost souls wandered innocently away in seemingly separate directions and Bob returned with his purchase. Being an unpredictable land, the post office closed at 12:30, not 1:00 that day, so we missed it after all, and only by two minutes. While we taped labels, I told Bob what had happened, and we discussed how close we’d come to being ripped off.
We locked and left the van, and walked to our usual lunch place two blocks away, grumbling about what a shame it was that we had to suspect people who are most likely decent and honest. We did feel certain we were almost robbed, even though the gentlemen merely asked for directions. Did they appear shady? By our cultural standards, yes. But in South Africa, the downcast eyes, low mumbled speech, and meek stance seem to be the product of generations of oppression and domination, if not their own aboriginal behavior. As we analyzed the origin of the character traits, we felt guilty. Were we prejudiced, or merely wise?
Bathe with this stuff and you'll become invisible to police, we're told.
Not wise. We returned forty minutes later to find only one of our four boxes left in the locked-tight van. Yes, in retrospect, leaving the boxes in the unattended van was stupid. We should have known. But in broad daylight, on a crowded street, right in front of a government building—who would think they’d have the nerve? We half-expected to lose a box or two in the mailing, but not before the mailing.
Of course none of the people at the telephones or waiting for the post office to reopen saw anything. Off we went to the police station, where officers assured us we’d never see our things again. Our clothing would be put to good use and our files, photos, and books would most likely fuel an evening’s cooking fire.
We’d had the privilege of using a borrowed van for weekly treks into town from where we lived in the bush. Careful and conscientious, we treated the van as if it were our own; that is, we parked it in the busiest, closest, and best-lit places, and always ensured it was locked securely. Despite this, the statistics were shocking. In 45 weeks we borrowed the van about 40 times, almost once a week. With our four occurrences, we were victimized ten percent of the times we drove. This would translate to 36 times a year, an intolerable figure, if we had driven every day, as we do at home.
We were not virginal victims. In California, our house had been robbed, our car stereo stolen, and an illegal alien once tried to get into my bedroom window while I was home alone. In the latter case, the police arrived swiftly, apprehended the creep and, before my eyes, dispossessed him of a knife, a screwdriver, and a few hundred pornographic pictures. But these three affronts were spread over seven years and, until South Africa, comprised our entire experience as victims of crime.
With the frequency of our South African incidents, it became difficult to give the benefit of the doubt to the average man on the street, the man who wouldn’t meet our gaze and mumbled incoherently into the ground. Of course it could be argued that our logic was flawed, that there was no proof who our thieves were. True. But aren’t we all susceptible to hunches and assumptions that grow from experience? We tend to generalize, to the detriment of many, and judge a whole by its most visible parts. The people who indulge in violence and crime poison our perception of the group.
Johannesburg children
Bob and I left that country with a unique South African souvenir tucked safely away, an unfortunate byproduct of the chronic crime we experienced there. Not rare but valuable, we took away a useful and lasting kernel of cynicism, planted by thieves. As we continue living the lives of expatriates, and even in our own country, we’re more suspicious of and aloof to everyone who approaches us.
I don’t think a plugged-up hotel bathtub or sink is terribly odd. The number of them we run into though, is. Why doesn’t housekeeping discover them? Shouldn’t they realize that a slow or stopped-up drain needs fixing before a guest arrives? This was the only flaw in our otherwise excellent Paris hotel. It was fixed right away.
Breakfast, I might add, was superb. Shall I name the place? Why not. It was the Holiday Inn Bastille—the joint beside the sex shop.
TV remotes with low or dead batteries, and missing lightbulbs, fall into the same category as slow drains. We run into these as well. Little irritations when you’ve traveled far, maybe checked in late, or early after an overnight flight. Sloppy. Shouldn’t happen in a decent hotel.
Pirouetting, I went to find Kun Chang, our film director, who’d been with us all day, along with his crew. When we’d given chase to our quarry, they’d followed our progress from a distance, eventually taking up a static, central position. Now I stood with Kun & Co. just long enough to get my little video camera turned on, amazed to see Bob and the purse-dip still together.
I went to join them, instantly lowering Bob’s perceived threat, from the thief’s point of view. No longer was it one mysteriously-motivated man against a criminal—it was just a couple! A harmless, curious couple. We moved out of the traffic and huddled next to a vending machine.
The man did not deny his occupation. He did not bolt. He did not raise a fist or deliver a swift kick or practice whatever form of aggression he’s known for. He answered our questions in soft-spoken Arabic-tinged French and repeatedly asked one of his own: Why? Why do you want to know these things?
Our French-speaking film director, Kun Chang, soon joined us, raising the level of our conversation from Bob’s basic French. I glanced down at my camera, a tiny thing the size of my little finger. Packed into its small body are a battery, a chip that stores hours of sound and video, an unnoticeable lens, and a few switches. Gone are the cumbersome wires, remotes, antennas, transmitters, and external storage devices we wrangled while using our old hidden cameras. But this one lacks a viewing device or monitor, and I wasn’t familiar with its capturing angle, or anything else about it.
Bob used a gorgeous little fisheye camera. He took a quick peek to see that it was on, then stashed it in his pocket, recording audio but no video.
Glancing down, I was horrified to see a flashing red light. This is one of the first things I usually disable when thiefhunting. You may as well display a giant neon sign: “I’m recording!” I covered the light with my finger, immobilizing my left hand for the remainder of the encounter.
Bob: “I’m a pickpocket too, like you. For the last 20 minutes, I’ve watched your technique. I can see you’re very experienced.” Bob does the butter-up.
Bob: “I’m very good on stage.” (And modest, an Italian thief once chided.)
First time using this camera. I didn't aim very well.
Bob, afraid our detainee would soon scoot, suggested coffee together, or dinner. “I need to work, I can’t stop to have dinner with you,” he said. “And beside, I don’t want to be on TV. I can see you’re filming me right now.” He jabbed a finger toward my camera.
Cooly, I pretended not to hear that.
We learned that our man considers himself best at stealing from handbags and backpacks. It’s best to do it when the person is moving, in motion, he explained, and you have to concentrate on the person while you’re doing it. Puffing up a little, he invited us to follow him and watch.
Looking up at Bob Arno, who is much taller.
I suddenly noticed how much fringe from my scarf was falling in front of the camera. I swept it away. But maybe that was why the thief had seemed to forget about it. I wondered what kind of image I was getting. And what about sound? Was my finger over the microphone? I didn’t know.
The thief told us that he doesn’t know how to work in a gang, he never has. And he said stealing is a hundred times more difficult on the street, as compared to the stage. Bob agreed, though he believes otherwise. When a criminal fails, he walks away and tries again. When a stage pickpocket fails, he has hundreds or thousands of witnesses, and a reputation dependent on success.
Throughout, the man stood calmly, gesturing rarely, jacket zipped to his chin. Built like a flyweight boxer, exuding confidence and arrogance, he seemed in no hurry to leave us, despite his professed need to work. (We actually see this behavior often: thieves seem to enjoy an opportunity to brag, to tell their sob stories, to talk to someone willing to listen.)
The pickpocket explained the importance of getting the cardholder-victim’s PIN, and that he had no trouble memorizing the four digits. He said he uses the credit cards himself, he never sells them to others. Then he dropped the bombshell—to me, the most interesting revelation:
He doesn’t steal money—only credit cards. He never takes people’s cash because it’s not insured. What he steals from their credit cards, they get back from the bank.
Really? A thief with a heart?
Bob begged again for a dinner together, or another meeting. The thief said sure, maybe tomorrow, and took our phone number. He made sure we had his name spelled correctly, and suggested some possible times. Shaking hands all around, he turned and slipped into the turbulent crowd. Back to work.
A cheese, mushroom, and egg crepe.
* * *
Did we go to the Eiffel Tower, you wonder? Did we visit Notre Dame, or the Louvre? No, no time for any of that this time. But we did eat well.
We started early at Gare de Lyon in Paris, on the hunt for a particular thief. He’s known for a specific M.O., and for his violent nature.
He stands in line at train station ticket machines and watches as passengers purchase tickets with credit cards. Most credit cards issued outside of the U.S. require a PIN code, which must be entered on a keypad. The large keypads on the train station ticket machines make it easy for anyone interested to learn a cardholder’s PIN. Rarely do people bother to hide the numbers they enter.
A man enters his PIN while buying Metro tickets with a credit card.
The man we sought takes note of the PIN—he shoulder-surfs—and watches where the credit card is put away. Then he follows the mark. He has any number of methods of stealing the credit card; the train and Metro station is full of opportunities-in-the-making.
He could let a partner stall the mark in a turnstile, on an escalator, or getting onto a train. But that would mean splitting the proceeds of the risky business with the partner. Our man prefers to work alone.
With crowds like these, who needs to split proceeds with a stall?
His favored victim is a woman. Why? It’s infinitely easier to steal from a handbag rather than a pocket. A purse has no nerve-endings. It’s slung on the woman’s back, it’s gaping open, it has an easy zipper, or a flap. The woman is busy, distracted, she has luggage, or a child. She’s in high heels, she’s “minding the gap.”
Bambi on the hunt.
We spent hours speeding through Gare de Lyon, fastwalking up and down stairs and escalators, through the train station and Metro station, past numerous banks of ticket machines, around and around. Who said thiefhunting is easy work?
Our irregular behavior might have raised the suspicion of station surveillance officers, had the police not been aware of our activities. But Bob Arno’s reputation precedes him and the anti-bandit detail of the Paris police force tolerated our pursuit.
Shoulder-surfing at the ticket machines.
When we first laid eyes on our prey, he was checking out the people waiting to buy tickets at the machines. He sussed them out quickly; the same way Bob and I look for thieves in a crowd. He turned on his heel and strode off at high speed, as if late for a train.
I was struck by his choice of clothing. He wore a shiny black jacket with wide white stripes down the arms, and a beige beret; both of which made him easy to pick out of a crowd. Bob and I, trailing him from a moderate distance, often lost him in the mobs of moving people. But he always surfaced again, easy to spot in his signature style. Had he worn a dull shirt, or a black sport coat like Pierre, like a good percentage of the businessmen hurrying through the terminal, we’d have lost him.
Okay, it's a bad picture. This is a small detail cropped from a fisheye video framegrab. The thief is in the center.
Bob and I split up for the chase. We made wide arcs around the thief, we got ahead of him, we hung back, we lingered behind columns and vending machines. I felt conspicuous in my beige coat. Bob was a striking beanstalk, a full head above the rest of the crowd. The guy had to notice us… any second.
I had two video cameras on me, but neither was my trusty Sony, the one I can work upside-down and blindfolded and shoot from the hip. I didn’t turn them on.
Keep an eye on the pickpocket…
The man was short but his bereted head rode among the crowd’s like a piece of litter on a choppy sea. He darted among the throng in a manner that Bob and I soon found predictable. He dashed from one queue to the next, scanned the potential marks, moved on. He was focused.
But he had tunnel vision. After all this time, he was oblivious to us. Bob and I got closer and more overt, closing in from opposite sides. I fiddled with my camera, afraid to look at its switches for fear of losing the bobbing beige beret.
But I did look at the camera. And when I looked up again, Bob was face to face with the shoulder-surfing pickpocket, and I knew it was all over. In a moment, he’d flee.
