Angel was a gangster and pickpocket in Panama City who now claims to be former on both counts.
Panama City, Panama—Angel Sanchez is trying to stay clean. Neither crack nor speed produces the high he craves. At 23, Angel is trying to give up pickpocketing. A drug high is nothing, he says, compared to the rush of walking away with someone else’s money.
Angel’s pickpocketing is not the biggest concern of the Panama police, yet they invented a scheme to put him out of business. The program that attempts to rehabilitate local gang members provides vocational training as tour leaders. Gangsters are not invited into the program. They must seek it out and apply for admission. Gang leaders trained to be tour leaders!
Get rid of the gangsters and you get rid of crime.
San Filipe is a World Heritage Site. It's worse than run down, but restoration has begun.
Angel’s neighborhood, San Filipe, is gangland central. Residents loiter in drugged-out stupors, eyeing the few tourists that are starting to trickle in. The district is marketed as Casco Antigua, Panama City’s old town. Imagine trailing after a tour leader who holds aloft a 9mm gun instead of a yellow umbrella. (“…and on this corner, my three amigos killed a rival…”) That could be San Filipe in a year or so. Just be sure to follow the raised arm with the right tattoos.
Angel in front of the school with Bob and our interpreter.
Angel didn’t speak as he led us to the unused, dilapidated school he lived in as caretaker. Pulling out his important key ring, he unlocked the tall iron gate. His face was tight and he looked at the ground. Bob and I had a significant haul of still and video cameras with us. Hefting our bags, we slipped into the thieves’ den and let the iron gate slam shut, locking us in.
There was barely room for us in a certain Houston taxi van. The driver must be living in her vehicle. Other than the back seat and part of the rear luggage area, every square inch of space was packed with necessities and creature comforts. We take a lot of taxis but had never seen one even remotely like this one.
The front seat, floor, between the seats, and dash were crowded with the driver's personal items.A flat-screen tv is lashed to the back of the seat, its antenna and cable against the window.
A large case of toiletries sat atop a cooler between the front seats. A brown paper bag of groceries was on the front floor in front of the passenger seat. A flat-screen TV was strapped to the back of the front passenger seat, a coiled antenna cable attached and rabbit ears protruding. In the back seat were stashes of dry cereal, chips, and instant noodles. I saw some bowls and utensils, too. Blankets and pillows were wedged under the third seat, along with what looked like a sleeping bag.
Under the van's third seat were stashes of sleeping stuff.
We liked the driver. Still, riding in her “home” felt funny, as if we were invading her private sphere. I know we weren’t really intruding, but taking pictures and posting them probably counts as intrusive. We made an appointment for her to drive us back to the airport the next day. She arrived on time, and we tipped her nicely.
Bambi's hiding spot in St. Petersburg, beside and behind a freestanding slab of concrete.
Were you waiting with bated breath for the promised pictures of the Russian ice cream seller and the stolen credit cards she retrieved from her rubbish bin? Were you trying to picture the pee-stained concrete slab I hid behind while filming the Mongolian thieves in St. Petersburg? If yes to either, you’re in luck. In my few days at home between trips, I’ve grabbed a few frames from the video and posted them to the story Bolshoi Bandits: more pickpockets in Russia.
In which Bob Arno and his fancy accessory spy on the Russians.
A man plays accordion on a Russian bridge
St. Petersburg, Russia— I was ensconced in my stake-out spot on the Canal Griboyedova across from the Gostiny Dvor Metro station; Bob was elsewhere. My position was excellent: close to the action, but the canal between my spot and the crime scene prevented my view from being blocked by passing people. It also had a massive, standing concrete slab, some sort of abandoned roadworks part, which I could duck behind when necessary. Leaded exhaust already lined my nasal passages, and fresh pee fumes rose from the slab. The location wasn’t perfect. I did enjoy the faint strains of accordion from a man squeezing one on the canal bridge half a block away.
Bambi's canal-side hide-out, beside a pee-stained concrete slab.
After filming alone for an hour or so, Bob passed behind me as if he didn’t know me and suggested I cross Nevsky Prospekt because the Mongolian pickpocket gang was at work in the crosswalk, out of my field of view. I did so, but felt exposed and nervous. I half hid behind a billboard and tried to film them, but the angle wasn’t good. A constant stream of pedestrians and traffic blocked my view of the corner. I was also afraid that, since they knew me, one of the gangsters would approach me from behind, or while I was looking through the camera’s view finder. After a while Bob came to get me again.
Bob speaks to the ice cream seller, who has contraband to pass off.
He brought me over to an ice cream cart on the corner in front of the Kazansky Cathedral. The proprietor, Katarina Pavlova, spoke French to Bob. She said she had noticed that he was observing the pickpockets, and that she had something to show him. She looked left and right before explaining that one of the thieves had walked past her stand and tossed something into her trash. Digging through the garbage, she retrieved a thick stack of credit cards, ID, and other wallet contents belonging to a 55-year-old French woman.
The wallet contents had been tossed into the ice cream seller's trash can.
The ice cream seller said she felt it was safe enough to tell us only because this was her last day of work; she was retiring from the ice cream business and planned to stay out of the city. She pressed the plundered heap into Bob’s hand with a forced crooked smile. He should take it. For some reason, she felt it was right.
She retrieved the stolen credit cards from her trash can after seeing the thieves throw them in.
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So. Pickpockets were dumping ID and credit cards. This seemed to corroborate what other thieves and the police had told us: that the guys working the streets do not exploit credit cards. But what were we to do with the cards? Of course, we immediately thought, we’d try to return them to the victim. After all, they included a telephone number and address. But just as quickly, with a chill, we asked ourselves if this was a set-up. Can you imagine the shakedown? We’re accused of being pickpockets, searched, and found with a French woman’s documents. What would that cost in baksheesh? I imagined handcuffs; then beatings and prison and huge ransoms.
Here you can see the peeish concrete slab. Bambi stands against the canal rail, in her black camouflage.
Bob took the cards.
I objected. So we compromised. We gave the cards back to the ice cream seller, then videotaped her handing them over to Bob and explaining how she had obtained them. Might not stand up in court, but it eased my mind. Eventually, we did try to phone the woman in France, but the number was no longer good. We put them into the mail and never heard of them again.
A little Russian gypsy girl plays in the street
We wandered a couple blocks down, halfway between Nevsky Prospekt and the Church on the Spilled Blood, toward an internet cafe. We’d been inside it many times, and it was always empty except for the sour boy who took our coins. Wandering along, we paused in the oppressive heat to watch a tiny barefooted girl squatting in the street, spinning an old muffler.
She begs and gets a bottle of water
With fine-tuned radar, she leapt to her feet as a man and woman strolled into view and ran to them as fast as her heavy velvet dress allowed. Her big brown eyes netted a bottle of water, which she appeared to take with delight. She went back to her muffler, only to rise again for the next couple, who tried to ignore her.
She latches onto the leg of a passerby
The tenacious little beggar latched onto the man’s leg and wouldn’t let go. When she fell to her knees, the man literally dragged her along the pavement.
The girl is given a dollar
One American dollar freed him. The girl admired her take, carefully folded the bill, and stuffed it into a small pouch that hung from her neck. We watched her until she ran to her mother, who sat on the ground with an infant a block away, leaning against the canal rail.
The little beggar girl tucks money into her pouchShe runs back to, probably, her mother and baby sibling
Late that night, we spoke with a group of Belgian tourists who said that they had been robbed the day before while coming out of the Metro station on Nevsky Prospekt. Three women were hit. One had her purse slashed with a blade and all contents were removed. Her arm had been across her purse. The cut was just under her forearm. The thief had planted his elbow in the woman’s stomach. The other woman had her fannypack opened. The pickpocket handed her passport back to her, indicating that it had been on the ground. I didn’t get the story of the third woman.
Andrey Umansky, a front desk manager at the Grand Hotel Europe, used to work at Baltic Tours, a tour bus operator. Every spring, before tourist season began, they’d pay the police, he said. The deal was that they’d use special signs affixed to buses and carried on sticks, which were meant to tell thieves to stay away from this group. And the police, he explained, made deals with the thieves in order to protect the groups that paid for protection.
There’s lots more.
Another day…
See Russian Rip-off, a five-part post with video.
I’ve made 69 take-offs and landings so far this year. There will be nine this week. I’m holding reservations for 27 more this year—so far. I’ve stayed 89 nights in beds not my own, these first seven months, or on airplanes. This appears to be a downward trend.
Last year I made 115 take-offs and landings. I stayed 176 nights in beds not my own or on planes.
In 2006 there were 117 flights and 184 hotel nights. 199 hotel nights in 2005; 222 in 2004.
Getting there used to be half the fun. That is rarely the case now-a-days.
Montreal—Read anything about this city’s vibrant dining scene and you’ll be pointed to Au Pied de Cochon. You’ll also be warned: dining here entails a serious lapse in a heart-healthy diet. Pigs, of course, are featured heavily on the menu. Foie gras is the restaurant’s other specialty.
I don’t eat pigs, or any four-legged animals. I’m not big on two-legged winged creatures, either. But foie gras makes me swoon. In Montreal, it comes from ducks, not geese, and I find it slightly inferior. Slightly.
Au Pied de Cochon’s version of poutine starts with potatoes fried in duck fat and topped with a large lobe of seared foie gras. And get this: the sauce is made of foie gras puree, egg yolks, and cream. The eyes and mouth say yeah! while the heart runs for cover.
It was fabulous. Bob and I shared a plate, and we could have walked away satisfied after just the foie gras poutine and glasses of chenin blanc.
Toasted bread spread with celery root puree, waiting for the contents of the can
Duck in a can
But no. We had to experiment. Bob had a fresh bluefin tuna dish, rare and complicated. I had duck in a can. My chef brother-out-law had told me about it. The waiter brought out a piece of toasted bread covered with celery root puree. He also brought a hot sealed can, which he opened with a can opener at the table.
Duck in a can: hot and freshly cooked
Slowly and ceremoniously, the steaming contents were dumped atop the bread. A duck breast, a large lobe of foie gras, buttered cabbage, a head of garlic, fresh thyme, and mysterious juices were cooked to a fragrant, unidentifiable heap that looked sort of… well, pre-digested.
Duck in a can: not a pretty sight
It was not a pretty sight, though it smelled divine. The structure stood tall on its bread foundation for a minute, until the bread soaked up enough fat and juices to lose its ability to support such a heavy burden. Neighboring diners’ eyes bugged out. Mouths gaped. Oohs and ahs for the spectacle of the duck.
Duck in a can: devine
Needless to say, it was delicious. The duck was chewy and gamey, the foie gras meltingly luscious, the garlic an occasional bright surprise, and the cabbage a vegetal counterbalance. The celery root and juicy-crusty bread could have been a meal on it’s own. As you can see, the dish was enough for six people.
No surprise that the combination, foie gras poutine followed by duck in a can, was not a wise choice; I knew that when I ordered. I just had to try both dishes. There were many others I managed to pass up.
Fresh shellfish at Au Pied de Cochon
So this is my recommendation. Go to Au Pied de Cochon. If duck in a can doesn’t intrigue you, try one of their spectacular seafood platters. Or probably anything on the menu.
St. Petersburg, a few weeks later—We loaded ourselves with video equipment this time, and headed straight for the Metro corner. Having spoken with the gang three weeks earlier, we were afraid to get too close. We wanted to observe them in action without being noticed. I found an excellent location just across the canal from the Metro entrance, a perfect stake-out spot with a convenient cement chunk I could hide behind when necessary. Bob wandered, undisguisable, wishing for a height reduction.
Instant gratification! (No, not Bob getting shorter.) First I noticed two of the gang leaning on the canal wall, watching the heavy flow of people going into and out of the Metro.
A pickpocket gang member on the phone
I recognized others loitering in the doorway and on the street corner. Most of them seemed to get or make frequent phone calls. They often disappeared from view, melting into the crowd, ducking into the station, or being obscured by traffic.
Suddenly, they’re off and running. I follow with my video camera. The victim doesn’t have a chance. Six gang members surround him. It’s impossible to see them all at any one moment, but on the video (see Part 2), you can see them dance around the mark like a Russian ballet. Two men maneuver themselves in front of him, impeding his progress. Four others are behind and beside him. Then, to buy more time, the largest of the team, in the gray t-shirt, spins around and shoves his weight against the victim’s chest and stomach, nearly doubling him over.
It was impossible to determine if anything had been taken. I had to choose who to follow with the camera and I chose to follow the thieves, who quickly dispersed, then regrouped. I don’t know how the victim reacted seconds later. He immediately left my field of vision.
I got another pursuit on film, but it ended behind an ice cream kiosk that blocked my view. I wasn’t far away, but I was stationary, with a canal in front of me. I got lots of shots of the thieves positioning themselves among the crowds crossing the street.
An opposing gang of pickpockets in St. Petersburg
Meanwhile, Bob wandered through the danger zone. He watched other thieves display their well-practiced choreography. They also employed the Russian sandwich, with a dropped piece of paper, a bend, a block, and a partner’s pluck from behind.
Mohammed is fine. He’s recovered from his near-arrest and is friendly with us again. We didn’t dare ask him to interpret for us again. But we met a nice Russian woman at the black market who teaches English…
St. Petersburg— “They think I robbed you,” he said.
By then it must have been obvious to the cops that we were not Mohammed’s victims, or anyone else’s, either. But they’d created such a melee they couldn’t let go, didn’t want to believe there really was no problem. Finally, they left with a warning to Mohammed, who was so shaken he just collapsed onto his low stool and hung his head. He wouldn’t look up at us so we left him, thinking he was angry with us for getting him involved.
So the cops had seen us and Mohammed together with a gang of known thieves. Why, then, did they arrest the local underdog, instead of the criminals? In St. Petersburg, where the police are pitifully paid (about 2000 rubles/month, US$70 at the time), payoffs are their bread and butter. Officers routinely roam the streets collecting 100 rubles ($3+) here and there, from unlicensed merchants selling caviar or souvenirs. Pickpockets pay police too. They buy a piece of property for a limited time span. This allows many thieves to work, and keeps them in their own territories. Vladimir, a pickpocket we met some years ago, had a one-hour-a-day claim on a short segment of Nevsky Prospekt. The Mongolian gang seems to own the Metro station corner.
When thieves are caught, they pay 700 or so rubles ($23) to the police and are let go. It’s well known, Mohammed’s friend Anton told us earlier, that police are corrupt and will take bribes for anything. They can be seen on the streets looking for unlicensed merchants in order to shake them down instead of looking for thieves. Why would they arrest thieves? The system works well the way it is, and rich foreign tourists fund it.
Bambi Vincent and Anton at the art market in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Tangentially interesting, Anton, who also works at the art market, told us that when a person is picked up for being drunk, the police steal everything from him: money, watch, and jewelry. Then they put the drunk in a cold shower to wake him up and put him out on the street. If the citizen complains of being robbed, the police claim he must have lost his belongings while he was drunk. Anton described his father’s clever hiding place for cash. He slits the inside of the waistband of his jeans and slips folded money inside. When he’s drunk and shaken down, the police don’t find the money, but take everything else.
St. Petersburg—Pseudo-cops!” we thought: bandits who pretend to be police. We’re about to be robbed! At the same time, I thought: no, we’re about to be robbed by real cops of the corrupt variety. The four of us in that deserted alley made a huge commotion.
Bob pointed to the entrance we had come from and shouted “You’re police? Okay, over there!” I shouted “in the public area!” and they shouted in Russian. We had no idea what they wanted. We carried a $1,000 digital still camera, but no video equipment and, thankfully, no hidden video equipment, which might have been considered illegal.
As our captors escorted us back to the art market alley entrance we heard the bleeping of police radios and saw police equipment under their shirts. Yet, knowing they were real cops did not put us at ease. We were still four agitated, confused, and rather scared people, unable to communicate. My thoughts were, get to a public place so we won’t be ripped off; find Mohammed to translate.
The cops allowed us to lead them into public view, or they led us. Just outside the alley gate, in the art market, we saw Mohammed on the ground with a gun to his stomach. Four other plainclothes cops had him surrounded. Everyone was yelling and a crowd had gathered. Mohammed was the only one capable of translating for us and he was beside himself, terrified and at gunpoint. As soon as we arrived he was hauled up and shoved against a wall, the gun still at his belly.
My reaction was to grab onto Mohammed. I hugged him, trying to show the cops that he didn’t do anything wrong to us, that he was our friend. Bob tried to reason with the cops, but none spoke English. Then six uniformed cops joined the fracas and our concern escalated. How far could this thing go, and what is it? For a few minutes, the uniforms were more interested in the plainclothes than in the civilians. With machine guns pointed, they demanded IDs from the plainclothes officers and scrutinized them intensely.
Mohammed had told us the previous day that because of his looks, he is frequently stopped and challenged by the police. With everyone still shouting and confused, including him, we couldn’t find out if this was one of those “challenges.” Why did Mohammed have a gun in his stomach? Why were we hauled into this business?
Bob dropped the name of an ex-KGB officer we know, with no idea where it would lead. Like a silent fart mysteriously clearing a room, the officers scattered and disappeared. The only Russian sounds we could dredge up turned out to be powerful, indeed.
“What is the accusation?” I asked Mohammed, several times before he quieted and paid attention.
St. Petersburg—we were surrounded by five hostile faces. Shaking inside, we stood firm until the men stalked off. Bob and I crossed the street to photograph the scene of the crime. Since the gangsters were still at work, I ducked into a shop doorway to be less obtrusive. Two men followed me in. They were thieves ready to snatch my camera, so I threw its strap over my head, pirouetted in the vestibule, and stepped back onto the street. The suspicious pair trailed me out, gave Bob the once-over, and wandered off. It was a cosmetics shop I had entered, filled with only female customers.
Bob Arno and translator Mohammed
We returned to the subway station with an ad hoc interpreter. Mohammed is a law student with a summer job selling paintings at the art market on Nevsky Prospekt. We’d met him the day before. He’s soft-spoken, a bit shy, black-haired and olive-complected; a Muslim Russian from the south of the country.
He was skittish about getting involved with a criminal gang, but in the end his curiosity got the better of him, or he couldn’t resist our pressure. Off we went to the Metro station, a block away. When we found them, all five predators were in the station lobby, watching for lucrative marks.
Here’s a bit of video. It’s confusing and hard to follow, but try. You’ll see the team of six St. Petersburg pickpockets at work outside the Metro station. It’s hard to spot them all. One wears a red hat, one a white hat, and the others are pointed out with arrows. You’ll see them start out fast after a victim, then go out of view. In the second sequence, all six surround a victim, then the biggest of them crashes into his chest to delay him. Then they turn and meet beside the canal to divvy up the swag.
Mohammed’s first timid overtures were rejected with disinterest. Then he used the words “Las Vegas,” and vor, Russian for thief, and the gangsters turned to look us up and down. A moment later we had them outside, and suggested we get out of the crowd. The eight of us walked a block away and around a corner, where there was less traffic.
Four pickpocket thugs in St. Petersburg, RussiaFour pickpocket thugs in St. Petersburg, Russia
By then Mohammed had warmed them up and the gang members were smiling and curious, though not comfortable. Bob got a two-fingered grip on the big guy’s wallet and gave him a little shove from behind, neatly extracting the wallet. That’s when they relaxed half a notch. We stood around small-talking for ten minutes, but nothing of substance was discussed. They claimed they throw away credit cards instead of using or selling them, but we’re not convinced. Mohammed said their Russian was not very good. Soon a well-dressed man with a briefcase joined us. “Professional,” one of the thugs said in English, and he made a gesture for pickpocket, stroking the back of the index finger with the tip of the middle finger.
You just tried it, didn’t you!
One by one, cell phones started ringing. I think the thugs were speaking with each other. A group of tourists paraded by, and two thieves caboosed them around the corner. Our conference dispersed, but ice had been broken.
Entrance of alley behind Nevsky Prospekt
Bob and I walked Mohammed back to the art market. He led us down a street parallel to Nevsky Prospekt, then cut through a long narrow alley to the back of the art market. After saying goodbye, Bob and I headed back into the alley.
Halfway through it, two scrawny young men came running up from behind us, shouting “Police!” They flashed ID at us. “Pseudo-cops,” we thought, bandits who pretend to be police. We’re about to be robbed!…
