Theft-proof vacation travel

Thiefhunters in Paradise. Empty pockets. 404

Theft-proof vacation

Empty pockets; Theft-proof vacation

Just about now, millions of people are thinking about summer travel. For many, it will be foreign travel. Novice or expert, it doesn’t hurt to review a few travel safety tips. Thefts everywhere are on the increase. And you want a theft-proof vacation, right?

Make these theft-thwarter tips a practice whether you’re far away or not so far, and you’re much less likely to become a sad statistic.

Bags

•Count them often and watch that everything is loaded into your taxi. Sometimes they’re not.
•Keep an eye on them in the hotel lobby; anyone can walk in and grab them when you’re not paying attention. It happens.
•Assess the risks of hotel lobby luggage storage before taking advantage of the service. Is it a locked room? Are they just in a heap in the lobby? Is there free access to them?
•Be aware that carry-on allowance may be severely limited on flights originating outside of America. Roll-ons allowed within the U.S. may be required to fly cargo on foreign flights. Choose a lockable carry-on, or keep a canvas tote handy to shift your valuables and necessities into if your bag is taken away for cargo.

Smartphones

Theft-proof vacation. The young pickpocket tries to nab the phone one-handed under his paper. (Frame grab from video.)
The young pickpocket tries to nab the phone one-handed under his paper. (Frame grab from video.)

•Do not leave valuables sitting exposed on a café table. Thieves can swipe smartphones as swiftly as a magician.
•Don’t flaunt it, or your iPad. These are highly valuable swipeables, and “Apple-picking,” when these electronics are snatched from users’ hands, is becoming more frequent and more dangerous.

ATMs

•Cover your fingers as you enter your PIN.
•Do not become distracted by activity around you. Fake fights are sometimes staged, or you might be asked for assistance.

Hotel Rooms

Theft-proof vacation. Hotel bed
•Do not carry your electronic card key in its folder marked with your room number.
•Check outside window access before leaving your window open when you’re gone or asleep. Do a hotel room security check.
•Always make sure your door closes completely when you leave your room.
•Remind yourself to empty the safe with a note in your shoe.

Public Transportation

•The moments of entering and exiting crowded public transportation are your most vulnerable and a thief’s most rewarding.
•If you’re in a crowd, be particularly aware of your valuables. Suspect bumps or jostles: they may be a distraction technique.
•Do not leave your bag unattended on a train. Do not leave it on luggage racks at the end of the carriage. Be aware of it if you place it on an overhead rack.
•If you’re pickpocketed in a crowd, try demanding the return of your item. It might mysteriously hit the floor. Shout out, too, on the off chance an undercover police officer is nearby.

Theft-proof vacation. A Lisbon pickpocket demonstrates
A Lisbon pickpocket demonstrates how he steals a wallet.
Theft-proof vacation. The pigeon poop perp squirts fake bird droppings on his mark, then points it out and offers to clean it off—while he cleans the victim out.
The pigeon poop perp squirts fake bird droppings on his mark, then points it out and offers to clean it off—while he cleans the victim out.

Pockets

•No, they’re not safe for valuables.
•Yes, buttons, zippers, and velcro give a fraction of a drop of extra protection in that they take the pickpocket an extra second.
•Use under-clothes pouches to store your stuff safely. Or try Stashitware, underpants with a safe pocket.
•Remove valuables from the pockets of a jacket before hanging it on the back of a chair.

Old Tricks

•Escalators: Recognize the Pile-Up-Pick. The person in front of you drops something just as the escalator ends, bends to pick it up and causes a pile-up. As people compress in the crash, the person behind you picks your pocket.
•Helpful cleaners: Heads up if you hear “something dirty got on you—let me help you clean it off.” He’ll clean you out.
•Electronic equipment surreptitiously offered on street corners is tempting, but you’ll walk away with a block of wood, and wonder how it happened. Heads up on the bait-and-switch scam.
•You cannot win pavement wagers. The three-shell game, three-card monte and others are designed to extract your money. The operator is in complete control and fellow players are shills.
•If you buy art or furniture to have shipped home by the store, take a picture of it just to be sure you get the right items. The very act of photographing seems to increase your odds.

Theft-proof vacation. Four pickpockets at work on a crowded tram.
Four pickpockets at work on a crowded tram.

Bottom Line
•Don’t attract thieves by looking like a wealthy tourist. Don’t wear flashy jewelry. Or replicas—the thief can’t tell your Rolex is fake or your jewelry is costume. Leave it in your hotel.
•You can never obtain 100% total security, but aim for a compromise that is comfortable for your travel style.
•Remember: the idea is to increase your awareness and decrease the opportunities for an unfortunate incident.

Have a great summer and a theft-proof vacation! And happy travels!

© Copyright 2008-2013 Bambi Vincent. All rights reserved.

Hotel Oddity #36

Would an elevator toll be tolerated at a U.S. hotel? Hard to imagine.
Insert ten euro cents to make the elevator operate.
Got a dime for the lift?

Our hotel in Naples was on the second floor (they call it the first floor). We didn’t notice it had an elevator until the day we left. We usually take stairs when we can and, when we arrived, we were luggageless anyway. Two days later our suitcases joined us and at the end of our stay, we dragged them all to the elevator. It was the first time we’d seen an elevator meter. It required ten euro cents to operate.

Would an elevator toll be tolerated at a U.S. hotel? Hard to imagine.
Would an elevator toll be tolerated at a U.S. hotel? Hard to imagine.

© Copyright 2008-2013 Bambi Vincent. All rights reserved.

Horn OK please

Horn OK please
Horn OK please
Horn OK please

“Horn OK Please,” in one form or another, is written prominently on the back of almost every truck—large or small—in Mumbai. The signs intrigued me. Why is the horn okay? What’s the point of the invitation? Mumbai is a constant cacophony of honking without additional encouragement—or maybe because of it.

Horn OK please: Indian truck
Indian truck
Horn OK please - Chicken truck
Chicken truck
Horn OK please - Free mortuary van in Chennai, India
Free mortuary van in Chennai, India

What I learned, finally, after years of silent, befuddled amusement, is that “horn ok please” actually means “please do not use your horn.”

You know: yes means no.

Even the chicken truck says “Horn OK Please.” Only the free mortuary van lacks the sign, due to its protruding casket.

© Copyright 2008-2013 Bambi Vincent. All rights reserved.

Pizza fumé

View from the table: Fumy motorbikes buzz by the lone pizza table in the street.
The pizza joint, and it's single table on the left.
The pizza joint, and it’s single table on the left.

Sounds good, but it’s not what you think if you’re imagining a fragrant, wood-smoked Margherita pie.

Back in Naples, lunching at the tiniest pizza joint in the hillside Quartieri Spagnoli district. The “restaurant” is just an itsy-bitsy kitchen in a narrow building, with standing space for two men. It has one table—outside—with two chairs. We’re three. We try two on one chair, but it’s too hard to eat pizza that way. Pizza requires elbow room. So one of us stands.

The table is actually in the street, on a three-way corner. And though the street is narrow, it buzzes with disorderly traffic like a major thoroughfare. A steady stream of cars, motorbikes, and delivery trucks maneuver around us with only inches to spare.

The carbon monoxide fumes mingle with the vehicular honking and motorbike beeping to relegate this meal to the “fuel” category. And by that I mean the fuel-flavored pizza soothes our hunger pangs and provides energy. The “delicious” factor would be found later, over the unique coffee of Naples, and sfogliatella.

Not to disparage the thin- and chewy-crusted pizza or the quality of its tomato, mozzarella, and olive oil. But it was impossible to appreciate under the circumstances.

As take-out, though, this pizza place might really rank.

View from the table: Fumy motorbikes buzz by the lone pizza table in the street.
View from the table: Fumy motorbikes buzz by the lone pizza table in the street.
My view from the pizza table in the street corner.
My view from the pizza table in the street corner.

© Copyright 2008-2013 Bambi Vincent. All rights reserved.

The Unattended Purse

Purse hanging on baby stroller
Purse hanging on baby stroller
Purse hanging on baby stroller

Just a little reminder to women…

A thief needs only a few seconds to assume ownership of unattended riches. Those few seconds are easily found when a woman leaves her handbag in a shopping cart or baby stroller. In the time it takes to select a ripe avocado, the bag is gone and out the door.

Don’t let go of your purse!

Joyce Lerner of Miami Beach had her wallet filched from her purse while shopping in her neighborhood supermarket. It was half an hour before she got to the checkstand and realized it—an obvious window of opportunity for the thief to use her credit cards. When she reported the incident, police told her they were well-aware of gangs that came to Miami Beach every winter and worked many different supermarkets.

Shoe stores in strip malls along the Las Vegas Strip are prime locales for larcenists looking for ignored bags. In fact shoe shops everywhere beckon to the opportunist. Shoe shopping is serious business, I know, and requires intense focus. Selecting, fitting, walking across the shop, admiring, and—where’s your purse?

And, victims tell me that beauty and nail salons are targeted by thieves. Some women become relaxed and distracted, and neglect their belongings inside, or leave their purses in their cars so they won’t ruin their newly done nails. Leave it to an opportunist to exploit a loophole.

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

Chapter Five: Rip-Offs: Introducing…the Opportunist

© Copyright 2008-2013 Bambi Vincent. All rights reserved.

Hotel oddity #35

Tense sign

Tense sign

ANOTHER hotel getting personal, just trying to help. This one’s in Berlin. The sign’s in the shower, where we’re exhorted to pay attention to our tension.

© Copyright 2008-2013 Bambi Vincent. All rights reserved.

Interview in an Opium Den – Pickpockets in Morocco

Al'alla, a retired pickpocket in Tangier
Pickpockets in Morocco. Al'alla, a retired pickpocket in Tangier
Al’alla, a retired pickpocket in Tangier

In a dim, smoky opium den, we faced the backlit profile of the Moroccan pickpocket. He barely looked at us, concentrating instead on our interpreter. Steaming glasses of sweet mint tea sat before us, packed with fresh leaves of brilliant green. Bob waited to sip his tea until I was half finished with mine—to see if I keeled over, I imagined.

We had come to the medina in Tangier in search of a pickpocket, and our hired guide had found him. Al’alla was hunched over a newspaper at the front table in the cave-like café, the only spot within bright enough for reading. After ushering us into chairs and ordering our tea, our guide and translator, Ma’halla, spoke in rapid Arabic to Al’alla: “Don’t say a word of English, my friend. Let me do all the talking. Just answer my questions in Arabic and we’ll both have money for the smoke tonight.” Well, he could have said that; but it soon became clear that Al’alla had been a skilled pickpocket in his day.

Questions tumbled eagerly from Bob, but Al’alla was no easy subject. Perhaps embarrassed by his miscreant days, he skittered and skirted the core of his story. Bob prodded, encouraged, and teased until he finally found the appropriate tool for extraction. With the glibness of a talk-show host and the sincerity of a confidence man, he proffered the camaraderie and respect of a colleague. Bob’s disingenuous smile and elegant canards came effortlessly, as if from a spurious rogue. Al’alla relaxed and, perhaps followed suit.

Pickpockets in Morocco

Al’alla had honed his talent as a child in Tangier, then traveled to Barcelona for the big time. It was the sixties, and while Tangier reveled in flower power and hippie freedom, its drugs were routed to Europe through Spain. Al’alla found picking pockets far more lucrative and infinitely safer than drug trafficking. People carried cash then, not plastic, and naiveté in travelers was more prevalent than sophistication.

On La Rambla, Barcelona’s broad and proud promenade, people strolled like clots through an artery. Kiosks of birds, flowers, and newspapers crowded the avenue. Parrots squawked, pigeons cooed, fragrances of cut lilies and hot paella wafted on the air—it’s still like that today. No one suspected the darting figure of a well-dressed gentleman, so obviously in a hurry, as he ricocheted off the moving mob.

Al’alla in his 50s still had a handsome face, though its several scars suggested a rough past. He was small and wiry with delicate hands. His soft-spoken manner and gentle composure alluded to the pretender’s persona he got away with in his furtive past. Today he worked as an electrician, and his handful of tools lay on the table as we spoke.

I’d been more than a little worried when Ma’halla first led us through the bewildering high-walled alleys of the old city. It wasn’t long before I realized we’d never find our way out alone. Was the medina really this big, or was Ma’halla confusing us with tricky detours? We lost all sense of direction.

The busy souk, with its colorful stalls of spices, brass pots, and rugs, gave way to vegetable sellers who sat on the ground shelling peas, defeathering hens, stripping mint leaves. Then there were only blind alleys, closed doors, and the occasional Arab hurrying past in his long, sweeping djellabah.

Ma’halla was not particularly savory: his face, too, was scarred, and the few teeth he possessed were red with rot. Big and muscular, he wore a cap pulled low over his bloodshot eyes. His English was good though, and he exuded a wary confidence that suited his mission.

The unnamed café was a hang-out for small-time crooks and drug addicts. A few strung-out characters packed their pipes behind us asContinue reading

Pickpocket beggars

Pickpocket Gamila, in Barcelona
Pickpocket beggars: Gamila
Pickpocket Gamila

On the heels of the Louvre pickpocket debacle, here’s a profile of two exuberant Roma women pickpocket beggars who tell us how they do it, who their favorite victims are, and why. They also told us how they accomplish a quick-change on the run after a theft: “I take out my ponytail,” Gemila said, “and put on lipstick.”

In Chapter One of my book, I describe how Maritza and Ravenna, children in Rome, pretend to beg under a sheet of newspaper. In Barcelona, Nezira and Gamila carry big slabs of cardboard, roughly torn from a carton. On it, scrawled in Spanish, is “No work. No money. No eat. Thank you for some money.”

The women, 31 and 28 years old, shove the cardboard horizontally into the waist area of their target and look up with enormous eyes. Under the cardboard their nimble fingers open fanny packs and rummage through pockets, unseen by their owners.

“These two are this city’s most prolific pickpocket pair,” Police officer Giorgio Pontetti told us when he sat in on our interview of them.

How is one to know desperation from deception, mendicants from impostors? One begs to eat, another begs to steal. The impostors, those who steal under the pretense of begging, can be found all across southern Europe. Some attempt to tug at heartstrings with scribbled claims of being refugees, and perhaps they are. Others have given up pretenses altogether, keeping the cardboard but omitting the written request for money. For them, any prop will do: a map, a section of old newspaper, an infant.

Yes, even an infant. A sleepy baby in a sling on the chest well communicates hunger and need. And if the woman with the baby comes close enough, the baby will act as a shield for her hands. It’s not uncommon for these babies to be in the midst of nursing at their mothers’ bare breast: all the more distracting to the victim. Irreverent? Perhaps. Deceitful? Absolutely.

Finally, it is frequently claimed that these women will sometimes toss their babies at their victims, which distracts the victims to an extreme and occupies their hands at the same time. Although we’ve heard it said many times, we cannot substantiate the assertion.

Pickpocket beggars

Beggar-thieves Nezira and Gamila had it all figured out. They had plopped their slender bodies into childlike positions on the ground, cross-legged, and dropped their jackets into a heap beside them. They were both pretty, with long dark hair and teenage faces. They squirmed restlessly, fidgeted, and repeatedly glanced up to Officer Pontetti for encouragement and approval.

Bob Arno interviews pickpocket beggars Nazira (left) and Gamila
Bob Arno interviews Nazira (left) and Gamila

“I go up to people,” Gamila explained. “If they say go away because they know I am going to steal from them, we just go away.” She shook her bangs out of her eyes. “But if they seem to be innocent, then I will go for them. They have no idea that I’m a bad person and want to steal money.”

Pickpocket beggars: Gemila
Gemila

Gamila grinned, hideously transforming her pretty face into a week-old jack-o’lantern’s as she revealed her rotten teeth. She lit a cigarette.

“Japanese are hardest to steal from because they always throw up their hands and step aside,” Nezira said. “They don’t want to have anything to do with us, so it’s hard to get close. They don’t want to get involved.”

Pickpocket beggars Nezira and Gamila
Pickpockets Nezira and Gamila

“Germans are so-so. Americans are difficult, but they have so many dollars!” Gamila laughed with embarrassment at her own daring, dipped her head, and looked at Nezira. Nezira giggled, then both fell apart, as if they couldn’t maintain seriousness for more than a few minutes at a time.

Pickpocket beggars: Gamila demonstrates her cardboard pickpocket method.
Gamila demonstrates her cardboard pickpocket method

They’re serious on the job, though. Bob used a lipstick camera which, as its name implies is the size of a lipstick, to film a similar duo. We put money-sized cut paper into an envelope, put the envelope in a fanny pack, and zipped the pouch closed. Bob wore it. Soon enough, a pair of women approached us making kissing faces, an odd combination of worried eyebrows, pursed lips, and pleading eyes. One’s cupped, begging hand steadied the cardboard balanced on her other arm. Bob held his little wide-angle lens at hip height. Under the cardboard, the film showed, the beggar-thief opened the fanny pack, removed the envelope, and closed the zipper. With a final mimed kiss and the envelope hidden beneath their cardboard, the pair wandered away.

Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. Was this M.O. used in the mid-1700s when the Mother Goose rhyme was written? Perhaps it was originally “beggar man-thief.”

When the two women saw us again half an hour later, they gave us the finger.

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Five: Rip Offs: Introducing…The Opportunist

© Copyright 2008-2013 Bambi Vincent. All rights reserved.

Pickpockets in the Louvre

Eiffel Tower pickpockets. A pickpocket warning at the Louvre.
A pickpocket warning at the Louvre.
A pickpocket warning at the Louvre.

Pickpockets running rife in the Louvre—nothing new there. Pickpockets acting aggressively: in our 20 years of active street crime research, we’ve been flipped off, hit, spit upon, and mooned.

I hate to say this because it’s bound to be taken wrong, but the flipping off, hitting, spitting, and mooning has all been committed by Roma whom we were following and/or filming as they pickpocketed or attempted to do so. Though they are certainly not the only pickpockets in Paris or in Europe, they’re a particularly visible group. Other nationals have learned to better blend into their host cities.

The Louvre pickpockets’ M.O. is already familiar to me. They employ minors—their own or other children from the clan. The children are not in school. (The parents allow them to attend until they can read and write; then they’re yanked out so they aren’t sucked into the Gadjo (non-gypsy) ways.) The children may get caught, but must be released to their parents because they are underage. The parents yell at these children, not because they were pickpocketing—but because they were caught. The adults, when arrested, are usually held only a day or two, if at all, and then go right back to work—usually back to their favorite territories.

Roma immigrants from Romania are fleeing real persecution, abominable conditions, and pauper’s wages. They arrive in France and other European countries claiming to seek a better life for themselves and better opportunities for their children. Their vocal representatives beg for integration assistance and national governments develop programs with that intention. Yet the Roma remain outsiders. By choice, it seems.

Many (or most) are illiterate, which seriously compromises their job options. What else are they to do?

One document from a current investigation against three Romanian women illuminates the trend [crime spike]. “For at least a year, observations in Duisburg (but also nationally) show that Romanian groups (apparently family clans) are committing organized crimes on an alarming scale,” it reads. Most of the crimes involve pickpocketing or shoplifting, but there have also been cases of fraud whereby perpetrators pretend to be deaf or disabled while panhandling, then snatch wallets and mobile phones from their distracted victims. Clan leaders send out mainly young women on a “regional” basis for these activities.
Poverty and Crime: Conditions Little Better for Roma Immigrants in Germany, Spiegel Online International, 10/19/12.

A crowd at the Louvre jostle to see the Mona Lisa, ignoring the prominent pickpocket warning.
A crowd at the Louvre jostle to see the Mona Lisa, ignoring the prominent pickpocket warning.

The police Bob Arno and I communicate with constantly express frustration over the Roma crime wave, which is not new, but is getting worse. Criminal Roma are regularly given €300 and escorted to the border. After their paid vacations in Romania, they return to pick up where they left off.

It is difficult or impossible to discuss this issue, let alone solve it, without being politically incorrect. Perpetrators, good Roma citizens, and the press all blame a prejudiced stereotypical image. The word gypsy is all but outlawed. My 250 page book on pickpockets and street crime does not use the word once (well, once—but in a string of general references to many cultures).

Yet, despite all the denials and euphemisms, Bob and I have observed and interviewed Roma—yes, Gypsy—pickpockets all across Europe. Police we meet and police we know well struggle to dial back crime levels perpetrated by their communities. Now, Roma begging has gotten out of hand.

There is evidence that much of the begging is organised and controlled by men. The women are expected to bring in at least 50 euros a day. Some, like outside the Gare Du Nord, operate in groups of up to 15. The police believed that invalids and children, who are used to gain sympathy, are shared out between the groups.
The Roma Repatriation, BBC News, 8/19/10

Countries experiencing Roma criminal gang activity are calling for the European Union to find a solution better than evictions, better than abuse, better than handouts, better than relegating the Roma to the barren fringes where they have little chance to integrate into society. But I wonder: do the Roma want to integrate into society?

© Copyright 2008-2013 Bambi Vincent. All rights reserved.

Nature’s bed bug trap

Bedbug on fingertip
Bed bug on fingertip
Bed bug on fingertip. © 2010 Lenny Vincent

As a very frequent traveler, I can’t let myself focus on the nightmare of hotel bed bug infestations. I’m queasily aware of the increasing problem, but trick myself into considering all the press merely FUD. Otherwise, how could I deal with 200+ nights in hotels each year?

Kidney bean leaves to the rescue! An ancient practice from Eastern Europe has just been verified, documented, and filmed under a microscope. The bean leaves trap the little bed bug buggers via tiny hooks that catch their achilles heel: thin spots in their exoskeletons at their leg joints.

“Spread bean leaves in a bed bug-infested room.” It sounds like an old wives’ tale, but it’s now proven: the bed bugs get stuck the moment they step onto the kidney bean leaves. See the video.

And if you don’t think bed bugs are super-creepy, read about their alt-lifestyle sexual practice called traumatic insemination.

I’ve suddenly got an idea for my vegetable garden.

3/11/17: Edited to add a great resource, more than you ever wanted to know about bed bugs, on the site of nonprofit org Tuck, which is devoted to sleep.

© Copyright 2008-present Bambi Vincent. All rights reserved.