Bambi Vincent – Page 34 – Thiefhunters in Paradise

Criminal on the loose

Evening. A sudden, deafening heartbeat jars my bones, and a vague anxiety revisits. The helicopter is back. Hovering low, its searchlight swings over my window, invading my private space with public urgency. I feel consumed by the thrumming and vibrate with it. The beam of light passes over my window again before it flies away, but it doesn’t go far. It circles, again and again, as usual.

“Criminal on the loose again,” I say. This happens at least twice a week, sometimes twice a day. If it’s daylight, I feel compelled to run outside and stare up at the police chopper, or look for glimpses of it between the trees and rooftops. This is the nester in me, the homeowner afraid for her safety and security. And it’s the thiefhunter in me, trying to triangulate the position of the fleeing perp, guess the scene of the crime.

If it’s night, I mentally confirm that all doors are locked. Who is being hunted? What did he do? Where is he now? Where would I go, if it were me? My neighborhood’s a good one for hiding, with all its mature trees and shrubs and shadows. Lots of walls to leap over. Did I leave any lights on to light up the yard? Sometimes Bob and I turn on a police scanner, but it’s never interesting. Sometimes we only get valet parking attendants, or something to do with golf. We haven’t learned how to use it properly.

Sometimes the helicopter is accompanied by sirens on the ground, but not always. Today the police cars actually drove onto the street behind my house. There, they always turn off their sirens before entering the neighborhood.

I don’t live in a war zone, but in a city center. Having grown up in suburbia, I can’t ignore these incidents as life-long city-dwellers might. The searches are never resolved to my satisfaction. I never learn what happened, or if the subject was caught. In fact, I’m always left with the vague assumption that the helicopter just gave up and left the criminal on the loose. It’s always a criminal, by the way. Never a suspect. In my mind.

I lived in Atlantic City for a year and heard more sirens there. Many, every day. But no helicopters. Maybe it was just a budget thing. Maybe Atlantic City police didn’t have a helicopter.

Bambi Vincent Las Vegas

The travel industry’s dirty little secret

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.

The travel industry’s dirty little secret

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.

Clever Travel Companions men's pickpocket-proof underwear; The travel industry's dirty little secret — Photo: clevertravelcompanion.com

As you’ll learn in our book, 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.

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Preface

Thieves categorized

“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.

Thieves categorized

Opportunists

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.

Strategists

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

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.

Muggers

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.

For examples and methods, see Pickpockets, Con Artists, Scammers, and Travel.

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Preface, part-c

thieves Travel Advisory

Consorting with thieves

Yes, the pickpocket's arm is around me. — Yes, the pickpocket\’s arm is around me.

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.

Barcelona thieves Travel Advisory

Stalking a moving target

Bob Arno films thieves, pickpockets, con artists.

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

Bob Arno steal street crime theft thieves tourist

Introduction

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

Many of the following posts will be 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

thieves Travel Advisory

PICKPOCKETS, CON ARTISTS, GANGSTERS, THIEVES, AND TRAVEL

Criminal on the loose

The travel industry’s dirty little secret

The travel industry’s dirty little secret

Thieves categorized

Thieves categorized

Opportunists

Strategists

Con Artists

Muggers

Consorting with thieves

Stalking a moving target

Introduction

Buy our book of thieves!