Revelations of a Rolex Thief

Officer DC, Bob Arno, and a Rolex thief
Rolex thief: A street in Quartieri Spagnoli, Naples, Italy.
A street in Quartieri Spagnoli

“You remember that famous movie, the one shot in Naples?” shouted Officer DC. “In this restaurant they filmed that movie. The whole world knows this section of Napoli.” He gunned his motorcycle and he, with Bob on the back, left me in the dust on the back of Officer M’s bike.

DC and M are Falchi—Falcons—two of Naples’ anti-theft plainclothes motorcycle warriors. The squad was launched in 1995 to fight, among other criminals, scippatori, the pickpockets and purse-snatchers who operate on motor scooters. Patrolling the city on souped-up motorcycles, the Falcons fight speed with speed, power with power, and strength with strength.

Our motorcycle excursion through Quartieri Spagnoli was not exactly a wind-in-the-hair power-ride, but it was bracing, a cop’s-eye view and guided tour of one huge crime scene. Hugging the backs of these brawny, spiky-haired, Levi-clad, cool dudes, we felt immune to danger—there, at ground level, but in a protective bubble.

Bob and DC had stopped to talk with a guy on a Vespa as M and I caught up with them.

Officer DC, Bob Arno, and a Rolex thief
Officer DC, Bob Arno, and a Rolex thief

“This is AS, one of the best scippatori,” DC said. “He’s an expert with Rolexes.” The cop turned to AS: “These are two journalists from America. They want to interview you.”

“What are you doing here?”

“We’re making a touristic tour,” DC said with a sweeping gesture.

“How many Rolexes do you take?” Bob asked. He had a video camera in his hand but it was pointed at the ground.

“In a week? It depends. Where are they going to show this movie?”

“In America. In Las Vegas. Hey—this man is better than you at stealing!”

AS didn’t react. “Are you filming this? Are you filming me and everything?”

“How many watches do you take in a week?” Bob persisted.

“I take maybe ten Rolexes in one week. Hey, I don’t like this movie you’re making. You’re going to show a bad image of Napoli.”

“This guy makes films about crime in all different cities. Quartieri Spagnoli will be famous in America.”

“AS, how much do you get for one Rolex?”

“$16,000 [in US$]. For, you know, the one with diamonds all around.”

“Now we are friends with Bob. We can visit him in America!” Officer DC started his bike.

“Can I call you on the phone?” Bob asked. “Later, when I find someone to speak Italian for me?”

“No, I don’t want to give you my phone number.”

“Bob is okay, we’ve known him for many years.” Translation: give him your number.

“Okay, you can call me. Here’s my number.”

“Why is it different? Is it new?”

“Ah, I changed the SIM card.” Translation: I’m using a different stolen phone.

Bob and I had wanted a good look at Quartieri Spagnoli ever since our unexpected introduction to a trio of scippatori—from behind. We’d heard from other officers that the police don’t even go into this district except in squads of four or more. It was a war zone, they told us. Neapolitans disown Quartieri Spagnoli as other Italians disown Naples.

As we rode through the narrow lanes, DC told us about his symbiotic relationship with AS.

“AS has a lot of respect for me, that is why he gave you his number. He gives me information about the criminals here. We cooperate.”

A Rolex thief and a cop
A Rolex thief and a cop

AS is an informer—he rats on major drug activity. In exchange, the Falchi close their eyes to AS’s vocation. Unless, that is, a tourist comes complaining to the police about a Rolex theft. In those cases, Officer DC can have a chat with AS, and AS can do some digging, find out who did the swipe, and try to recover the item. Not that it always works….

DC stopped his bike to point out some of the quarter’s highlights.

“Look at all the laundry hanging from the balconies. Typical for this area. And here, this is one of the squares where the mob is very big, the Camorra. They all have their own areas and their own crimes—drugs, prostitution, stealing…”

“Do the grandmothers really sit in the upper windows watching for Rolexes?” I asked. It sounded like a myth, but I’d heard many times that theft here was a family affair.

Someone whistled—the piercing, two-finger type.

“That means police,” DC said. “They’re warning their friends that we’re here. Yes, the women sit on their balconies and when they see something to steal they call their sons or grandsons to come by on their scooters. It’s true.” He twisted around to look at Bob. “You must be careful with your video camera. These are gangs of thieves we’re passing and they’re looking at it. They can steal it.”

We paused in front of the funicular, the very one that inspired the classic Neapolitan song “Funiculi, Funicula.”

“Here in Piazza Montesanto there are many pickpockets, near the underground station. They steal many wallets in this area. And the funiculare is here. We have four video cameras watching this Piazza. There’s a lot of drug dealing here, too.”

Most tourists never venture into these areas of Naples’ old town and, but for the threat of theft, it’s a shame. Although we have no excuse to describe them in this book about criminals, most Napolitanos are warm and welcoming toward visitors; Bob and I adore their casual, urbane tradition. With its lively outdoor culture and its heart on its sleeve, Quartieri Spagnoli is the heart and soul of the place I call the city of hugs and thugs.

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

Also read How to Steal a Rolex
© Copyright 2008-present Bambi Vincent. All rights reserved.

Hotel Front Desk Safe Theft

Hotel front desk safe

hotel front desk safe theft

Natalie is a tour sales manager for one of the major cruise lines. She’s an experienced world traveler and accustomed to advising others on travel dos and don’ts. She and a girlfriend, both Australian, took a trip to Bali, Indonesia. A wide range of hotel options exists there, from luxury six-star resorts to shacks on the beach that rent for two dollars a night. Natalie and Linda booked a “decent” hotel; one with a lobby, private bathroom, rooms that lock, and a sense of organization. In America and Europe, it would fall into the three-star range.

At check-in, the two women were each given a manila envelope in which to put their valuables. They sealed and signed the envelopes themselves and gave them to the reception clerk, who put them in the hotel front desk safe.

Admittedly, they had a splendid holiday on the exotic isle, carefree and uneventful.

At check-out, the two were given their envelopes and they turned to get a taxi. But as they were leaving, they overheard another guest complaining at the front desk. Cash was missing from her envelope.

Natalie and Linda tore into their envelopes and also found cash to be missing. Yet, their envelopes did not appear to be tampered with in any way. The hotel denied any responsibility and, after a brief argument, Natalie and her friend chose to leave in order not to miss their flight home. Later, Natalie wrote to the hotel, but never received a reply. She didn’t take the issue any further.

Did the hotel make a system of this nasty theft? If so, it’s particularly underhanded with its intentional implication of security. As in the “pigeon drop” scam, the villain suggests and the victim voluntarily complies with the transference of valuables to the bad guy. A con if ever there were one.

The timing, too, is strategic. Most guests, like Natalie and Linda, will have a plane to catch. They’ll often plan to fight the matter later, but rarely follow through.

So how was the envelope opened? Could it have been a magician’s trick?

hotel front desk safe theft; Wax stick

In my former career as a graphic designer, I occasionally used wax to fix a graphic element to a page. Rarely, because most page design was completely electronic. The wax I used was in stick form. It looked and acted exactly like a glue stick, except that it never dried.

If hotel guests were handed a wax stick with which to seal their envelopes (I don’t know that they were), they’d likely never realize the temporary condition of the closure. A duplicitous staff member could later open a supposedly sealed envelope, then glue it shut properly. Who’d know? Who’d even notice?

Alternatively, the bottom flap of the envelope could have been lightly glued, then later opened and resealed.

There are just too many people in this world who cannot be trusted, and it’s best to avoid the necessity at all, if possible. Then what to do?

Travel with hard-sided luggage and use your largest as your safe. True, the entire suitcase can be stolen, but we feel that would be highly unlikely in most situations, while a small tempting object might, on occasion, “get legs.”

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

Chapter Four: Hotels—Have a Nice Stay

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

Watch-stealing

Watch-stealing thief demonstrates
Watch-stealing thief demonstrates
A Rolex thief demonstrates how a watch is grabbed, twisted, and broken during a steal.

Wristwatches are a classic subject of seizure. The problem is not widespread, but concentrated largely in specific locales. Naples, Italy, is only one of them.

José, a day visitor there, stopped on Via Toledo to photograph a colorful produce stand. As he walked away with his wife, his Rolex was snatched from his wrist. He turned in time to see a teenage boy running up into the narrow alleys of Quartieri Spagnoli, bystanders watching with no apparent concern.

A cruise ship captain had his Rolex ripped off from the perceived safety of a taxi stopped in traffic, as he rested his arm on the open window. And a grocer we met, a Napolitano, said the motorcycle bandits, scippatori, had tried to grab his Rolex four times, and finally succeeded. He had a new one now, but showed us the cheap watch he switched to before leaving his store every day with the Rolex in his pocket.

In Caracas, 17 members of an organized tour paused in a square to view a statue of Bolivar. While the tour guide lectured, a pair of men in business suits jumped a Japanese couple who stood at the back of the group. They were wrestled to the ground, their Rolexes pried off their wrists, and the well-dressed thieves on their escape before anyone could spring into action.

Watch-stealing: Bob Arno's multi-step steal is just as fast as a thief's, but doesn't break the watch.
Bob Arno’s multi-step steal is just as fast as a thief’s, but doesn’t break the watch.Bob Arno’s multi-step steal is just as fast as a thief’s, but doesn’t break the watch.

After watching my husband, Bob Arno, demonstrate watch steals in his show, people come up to us with wrists outstretched. “But they couldn’t get this one, could they? It’s even hard for me to unclasp.”

Watch-stealing

Bob’s theatrical techniques are totally unlike the street thieves’ methods. Bob’s stage steals are designed to climax with the surprise return of an intact watch. The thief, on the other hand, cares not if the victim notices or if the watch breaks. In the street, a watch thief gets his quick fingers under the face of the watch and pulls with a twist, snapping the tiny pins that connect the watch to its strap.

The readily recognizable Rolex is a universal symbol of wealth. Its instant ID factor makes it not only a conspicuous target, but highly desirable on the second-hand market. Even a fraction of its “hot” price brings big bucks to the thief and the fence.

Outside of Naples, in South Africa, Brazil, and England for example, seizure of Rolex watches is big business often perpetrated by Nigerian gangs, who send shipments of these status symbols to eager dealers in the Middle East. Who would guess that watch-snatching was so organized, so global?

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

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

Read How to Steal a Rolex

How pickpockets take advantage of natural distractions

Kensington Palace

LONDON—Anthony Powell hovered on the fringes of Princess Diana’s funeral, lifting wallets from the handbags and pockets of devastated mourners. Princess Diana’s funeral! He edged up to his grieving marks as they waited in line to photograph the brilliant floral tributes piled against the Kensington Palace gates. Powell had a female accomplice to whom he passed his ill-gotten gains. She exchanged sorrowful glances with each intended victim before stuffing their cash and valuables into a bag suspended from her waist.

At 32 years old, Anthony Powell may have been at the height of his specious career. Or perhaps he’d have gone much further, making international “business trips” in order to attend major world events where pickings are plentiful.

Like all successful pickpockets, Anthony Powell knew the operating maxim put so succinctly by Detective Crawford of New York: distraction before extraction. It’s fair to assume that most of the funeral crowd were upset, distressed, and experiencing emotional turmoil. What a perfect milieu for a pickpocket.

In court, a witness described watching the thief “twitch his fingers like a gun fighter in a cowboy film” as he reached toward a mark’s bulging hip pocket. The observant citizen had used her cellphone to call police. She forfeited the formalities of the funeral and kept her attention on the pickpockets until the police arrived. The couple was arrested and found to be carrying a large amount of cash in sterling and at least ten foreign currencies, several wallets, and credit cards not in their names.

London pickpocket warning

Their apartment in southwest London was searched later on that unfortunate September 6th, and the evidence was damning. Well over a hundred empty wallets were found, and under the mattress a rainbow of currency from around the world. With typical British understatement, it was suggested at the court hearing that the couple might, perhaps, have been practicing this activity even before September 6, 1997 at Princess Diana’s funeral.

What kind of human being could prey on distraught mourners at a funeral, I wonder. How heartless must one be to prowl and pilfer on such a heart-wrenching day of international sadness? Was the man entirely lacking in compassion? Was he deranged?

“Totally unscrupulous parasites,” a judge called Powell and his partner, as they were each sentenced to three years in jail.

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

© Copyright 2008-2010 Bambi Vincent. All rights reserved.

How pickpockets use razor blades

Russian pickpocket Archil Zantaradze 1

A Close Shave, or, Honey, There’s a Hole in my Handbag
Archil Zantaradze keeps a razor blade in his mouth the way someone else might store a tired wad of gum. Gently curved against his upper palate, he can dislodge the blade with a bit of tongue suction and discreetly arm himself in an instant.

True, pickpockets, by our definition, are non-violent. The razor, actually half a blade, is meant to slice a pocket or a purse; never human flesh. The technique is a specialty of Zantaradze, St. Petersburg’s most notorious Georgian pickpocket, and peculiar to his compatriots.

Zantaradze perfected this dangerous practice while just a teenager. (I can imagine the manipulation easily: as a kid, I removed my retainer the same way. But I never worried about drawing blood!) He was taught by his own father, as all his brothers were. And before he ever even scraped a razor against his first soft whiskers, he could shoot the blade with awesome skill from its wet storage place to his soft palm. His dexterous tongue snaps as quickly as a frog’s and he catches the razor in his hand as neatly as a magician palms a card.

Russian pickpocket Archil Zantaradze 2

Zantaradze’s sleight of tongue is not unique among the criminal population of Russian Georgians. Those who aren’t taught at home learn in jail, where the razor blade is a vital commodity. Desperately creative, inmates find inconceivable functions for the simple object. Indeed, when attached to a short length of wire and pushed into a power outlet, the lowly blade miraculously becomes both a little heater and a water-boiler. And, “a skillful cut of veins may lead a tired prisoner if not to death, then into the relative comfort of a prison’s hospital bed,” my Russian journalist friend Vladimir explained. “Life accounts in prisons are also known to be settled with this small metal device. Not to mention the ordinary functions of the razor blade, like shaving or paper-cutting.”

Vasily Zhiglov, our St. Petersburg Police informant, arrested Zantaradze some months before my questions to him, and thereafter had ample opportunity to interview him. Lounging in prison, Zantaradze was unembarrassed but surprised that he had failed to bribe his way out. Officer Zhiglov acknowledged that not all policemen can resist this “easy-sounding temptation,” as the sum represents full or at least half of a policeman’s monthly wage. (The bargaining usually starts at 500 rubles—$25 at the time of this research.)

It was not without a certain pride that Zantaradze admitted to Zhiglov that he, along with at least four other Georgians, spent the summer of ’98 in France, “working” the streets and stadiums of cities hosting matches of the World Cup. Zantaradze maintained that a skilled thief could easily make three to five thousand U.S. dollars a day by extracting cash from the pockets and bags of the hordes of often-drunk soccer fans cruising the streets and shops of every hosting city. The French towns, unaccustomed to such crowds and crime, were unprepared and understaffed for the deluge.

Russian pickpocket Archil Zantaradze 3

Officer Zhiglov estimated that there were about 70 Russians, mostly from Moscow and St. Petersburg, who combined the pleasure of watching World Cup matches with the labor of cleaning out other fans’ bags and pockets. He said that before heading to “work” in a foreign country, a pickpocket would thoroughly study the criminal code of that country. “And one would certainly prefer to work in France or another European nation where the law is much softer on this particular crime than, say, in Arabic countries,” Zhiglov said. Each year Russia receives about a dozen of its returned citizens caught stealing abroad.

Igor Kudelya, Senior Lieutenant of the St. Petersburg pickpocket squad, said that on frosty winter days, when other pickpockets’ fingers “have frozen senseless,” the Georgian can be spotted warming up his fingers by exercising them with two or three small metal balls before entering a chosen work spot.

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

Chapter Five: Rip-offs: Introducing…The Opportunist

© Copyright 2008-2010 Bambi Vincent. All rights reserved.

A thief at the theater

A thief might use a tool like this to reach into your personal sphere. More likely, he'd use a bent wire hanger.
A thief might use a tool like this to reach into your personal sphere. More likely, he'd use a bent wire hanger.
A thief might use a tool like this to reach into your personal sphere. More likely, he'd use a bent wire hanger.

On a trip to London, Diane Breitman went to see the hit musical Mamma Mia at Prince Edward’s Theatre in Soho. She had seat #1 in a row near the front: the seat was all the way against the left wall. The row in front of Diane was empty; the row in front of that was occupied.

During the overture, a lone man took the seat directly in front of Diane. He irritated her by humming along with the songs, so she noticed him. He also moved a lot, first slouching back, then leaning way forward, back and forth. After a while, he got up and left, bent over so as not to block others’ views.

Some time later, the woman in front of Diane, two rows ahead and also in the seat against the wall, looked back. Shockingly for a lady at the theater, she clambered over the back of her seat and got into the empty row between her seat and Diane’s. She turned to Diane.

“Did you see the man who was sitting in front of you?”

“Yes, sort of.”

“He stole my wallet!” she hissed. “My purse was on the floor at my feet, against the wall. When I looked for it, it was under and behind my seat. I only noticed because I needed a tissue.”

What sort of thief would buy an expensive ticket to the hottest play in London? Possibly one who expected to collect many rich and neglected wallets. Could he have snuck in without a ticket? Highly unlikely. Prince Edward’s Theatre is one of the few with a security staff. Guards and video surveillance, however, only monitor the lobby and chaotic sidewalk area in front of the theater. My theory is that the perpetrator bought a ticket for pittance after the show had started, from one of the resellers who loiter in front of the theater. He may have changed seats several times, and stolen several wallets. There are no cameras inside the theater. Security officers acknowledged this incident but said reports like this one are extremely rare.

St. Isaacs Cathedral

They may not be rare at the Mariinskiy Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, where our friend Vladimir had arranged to take us to see Verdi’s Forces of Destiny. Well-meaning Vladimir, who wanted to treat us, had purchased “Russian” tickets, which cost a fraction of “foreigner” ticket prices. At his suggestion, we stopped speaking English as we entered the theater and tried to effect gloomy Russian expressions, but ticket-takers instantly recognized us as foreigners and rejected our tickets. Vladimir was mortified. We tried to pay full price then, but didn’t have enough rubles and the box office didn’t accept American Express, the only card we had on us. Eventually Vladimir found a sympathetic ear and we were allowed to sneak in. He’d obtained excellent seats in the historic theater.

At intermission we mingled among the audience on the mezzanine, in the lobby, and in the stairwells. We were off duty, but Bob’s trained eyes leapt to a pair of thieves in the stairwell bottleneck. It was an ideal situation for them, and what opera-goer would be on guard inside the gold-leafed glory of the Mariinskiy?

“We have many theaters and museums in St. Petersburg,” Officer Alina Kokina told us in the St. Petersburg police station. “Pickpockets love to work inside them. They like to work on foreigners. They judge from a person’s appearance how much money there might be.” She paused. “To be a pickpocket was a prestigious profession during the war. Now they just do it out of desperation.”

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

© Copyright 2008-2010 Bambi Vincent. All rights reserved.

Hotel room security check

Hotel room security

How to do a hotel room security check

Hotel room security

[dropcap letter=”B”]ob and I sleep more nights in hotels than in our own home and, to date, we have never been ripped off in a hotel room. True, we use a certain amount of care, but our laptops are usually left out and sometimes valuables are more hidden than locked. We stay in hotels ranked from six stars to no stars, depending on our sponsors and our intentions. In each hotel room, we make a quick and automatic assessment of risks and adjust our behavior to correspond. We have never walked out of a hotel* because of hotel room security issues; we simply adopt the necessary precautions.

The room key: we prefer electronic card keys. Old-fashioned metal keys can be copied, and where might copies be floating around? Electronic locks are usually recoded after each guest. Most electronic locks save records of whose keys have recently gained entry. Authorized keys are registered to their users. So if a guest reports a problem, security can tap into records stored in the lock’s mechanism and see the last ten or so entries, be they housekeeping, an engineer, a minibar man, or the guest himself.

Hotel room security: In 2007, Tokyo's Disneyland Hilton issued paper keys with room numbers printed on them.
In 2007, Tokyo’s Disneyland Hilton issued paper keys with room numbers printed on them.

Electronic key cards should not be marked with a room number. They’re usually given in a folder which identifies the room. Leave the folder in the room when you go out and carry just the un-numbered magnetic card. If you lose the key, the safety of your room won’t be compromised.

Some hotels still use metal keys attached to a big fat ornament and expect guests to leave keys at the front desk when going out. I’m not fond of this method for several reasons. First, I prefer privacy and anonymity rather than announcing my comings and goings. In some hotels, anyone can look at the hooks or pigeonholes behind the desk and know if a room is occupied or empty. Second, I don’t care for the delay entailed in asking for the key on returning. I could just take the thing with me, but its design discourages that. So third, I don’t want to haul around a chunk of brass the size of a doorknocker. And finally, these keys are usually well identified with the name of the hotel and room number. Losing it would expose one to substantial risk. When possible, Bob and I remove the key from its chunk and just carry it, re-attaching it before check-out. At other times, we go traditional and turn in the key as the hotel suggests.

Deadbolts and door latches: we like these for hotel room security during the night, but they aren’t universal. In Paris once, two men entered our room in the dead of night. Luckily, we woke up and Bob dramatically commanded them to get out. “Pardon,” they said, “c’est une erreur,” it is a mistake. The strange thing was that they had been standing there whispering for a moment. If it had truly been a mistake, wouldn’t they immediately back out of an occupied room? We should have placed a chair in front of the door beneath the knob.

Peephole in the door: I always look out at who’s knocking on the door, and if there’s no peephole, I ask through the closed door. Minibar? No thanks. Window cleaner? Wait til I check out. Engineer? I’ll call the front desk and find out who and why.

Connecting doors to adjoining rooms: I always double check to make sure they’re locked. They always are.

Windows: this is what I look at first, mostly because I hope they open. If they do open, I need to know about outside access. Is there a balcony? If so, there’s probably access to mine from a neighboring balcony. I’ve spoken enough with Frank Black, a career burglar, to never leave a room with an open balcony door. Frank specialized in burglarizing high-rise apartment buildings, but 21 years in prison has, apparently, retired him from that business. He’s now a respected tattoo artist and children’s book author.

In Florida (and I presume elsewhere, too), a certain subset of cat burglar is called a pants burglar. These creep in at night through open lanai doors, while the occupants are sleeping. They’re named for their beeline to men’s trousers, where they hope to find a wallet. They also visit the dresser top hoping to find, perhaps, a woman’s ring taken off for the night.

Hotel room security: One morning I woke to see a perfect convergence of wires out the window. Only the view from my pillow created this lovely, serendipitous intersection of three unconnected and discrete (phone? electric?) lines.
One morning I woke to see a perfect convergence of wires out the window. Only the view from my pillow created this lovely, serendipitous intersection of three unconnected and discrete (phone? electric?) lines.

I love an open window, but before I sleep with a breeze, I need to analyze window access. If my room is on the ground floor, on an atrium floor, or if it has a rooftop out the window, I won’t sleep with it open. If there are nearby balconies, forget it. Of course it also depends on the overall ambiance and character of the property. At a safari lodge in Tanzania I’ll worry more about baboons. In a thatched-roof teak tree-house in Bali, I figure I’ve paid enough to expect good security. At an all-inclusive beach resort with rooms that don’t lock—well? I planned for that when I packed.

After a quick appraisal of the hotel room security combined with its overall quality, we know how careful we want to be. In truth, we leave our laptops out in full view in about eighty-five percent of the rooms we stay in. Small valuables? Never. Wallets and jewelry? In the safe.

Some travelers believe in using duct tape to fasten their valuables to the underside of a bedside table, or other furniture. I can’t endorse that practice, unless it’s a last resort.

“During peak travel seasons hotels tend to use a lot of transient help,” Bob Arno says, “and sometimes the screening of these temporary employees is not as high as it could be. So yes, one always has to be concerned about hotel room theft.” The only way to protect your small valuables is to lock them in the hotel room safe.

But is the safe safe? We generally feel secure with electronic safes that allow us to key in our own code or swipe our own magnetic strip. For a magnetic strip, we use an airline or telephone card, not a credit card. The old-fashioned type of safe that takes a regular metal key we do not consider safe and do not use. We’ve surveyed police officers, hotel security, and FBI agents on this issue, and they agree with this reasoning.

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Four: Hotels—Have a Nice Stay

*Once, during a short stay in a Greek hotel, we felt it unwise to leave the things in our room unattended. Had our visit been longer than overnight, we would have relocated.

Much more on hotel room security:
Hotel security in the hands of housekeeping staff
Hotel security: room door left open by housekeeping
Hotel room security lapses
Hotel room theft
Hotel room theft by doorpushers
Hotel Front Desk Safe Theft
Hotel lobby luggage theft
Hotel lobby luggage theft #2
Hotel room safe thefts
Beware hotel phone scam

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

Bambi’s bag snatch

Bag snatch graffiti

Bag snatch graffiti

[dropcap letter=”W”]as it instinct or anger that made Bob chase my bag snatcher? He rocketed down the street brandishing the famous umbrella weapon that was so ineffectual in Naples. I had managed nothing more than “Hey!,” but my weak protestation was like the starting gun at the Monaco Grand Prix. Two grown men went from zero to sixty in an instant.

Bag snatch!

I can’t say I was caught unaware when the bag snatcher stepped up to meet me, face to face. He calmly looked me in the eyes, seized the strap of my purse with both hands, and yanked it hard enough to break the leather against my shoulder. It happened much faster than you can read that sentence.

I gave my little shout and the creep was off and running, Bob on his tail. It took me several seconds to realize that I still had the purse clutched tightly in my hands. I could have laughed, but for the fact that my husband was in pursuit of a potentially dangerous criminal in a decidedly unsafe neighborhood.

The street we had walked was full of the necessities of life in this non-touristy part of Barcelona, lined with tiny hardware, shoe repair, and paint shops. We had been directed there, without any specific warning, in search of a few pieces of wood. Peeking through doorways seeking the lumberyard, we revealed ourselves as obvious outsiders. As we strayed ever further from the relative safety of La Rambla, we sensed a vague but growing threat of danger.

My antennas were out way before the interloper trespassed so suddenly into my aura. I didn’t see his approach, but I had already assumed a protective posture. Both my hands held the small purse I wore diagonally crossed over my chest.

Bob was a few steps ahead of me and didn’t see the confrontation. It only lasted two seconds. It’s astonishing what analysis and conclusions the brain can manage in those instants. I thought the man looked ordinary but grave. He stood uncomfortably close and made uncommon eye contact. I thought he would speak. I thought he would ask a question, or offer advice. Against my will, I slipped into the trusting attitude of a traveler in a foreign land. And that was my mistake.

Perhaps I’d have reacted quicker or with more suspicion if the bag snatcher had looked sleazy, mean, or desperate. But he didn’t, and I gave him the benefit of any doubt. In those two seconds, the gentleman had all the opportunity he needed to seize the strap of my bag and yank.

Barcelona alley

My feeble objection was enough to get Bob’s attention. He whirled around and leapt into pursuit, his long stride a clear advantage. When the perp dashed into a crowded alley, I thought it was all over. Bob bellowed “Policia!” at a volume that would fill an amphitheater. I, far behind, expected to see the escaping sprinter blocked or tripped by the local loiterers.

On the contrary. The sea of people opened for his getaway, then closed up again to watch the tall guy run. They didn’t exactly block Bob’s path, but seemed to plant themselves firmly as obstacles. Bob had to give up.

For me, the humiliation suffered by the would-be thief was almost enough. Like a cat with a mouthful of feathers, he ran with nothing more than twelve inches of torn leather strap in his fist. Yet, I was shaken and weak-kneed immediately following the experience, and the after effects lingered for months. Despite the fact that I wasn’t hurt, I lost nothing of value, and Bob hadn’t been tripped in the chase, I felt victimized.

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

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

Pirañas: Pickpockets in Lima, Peru

Wilmer, a pickpocket in Lima, Peru.

Petter, a pickpocket in Lima.

A dozen boys swarmed around Gary Ferrari in front of the Sheraton Hotel in Lima. At least it seemed like a dozen—they’d appeared out of nowhere and were gone in just a few seconds. In that cyclone of baby-faces and a hundred probing fingers, they got his wallet and the gold chain from his neck.

Pickpockets in Lima

“We call them pirañas,” said Dora Pinedo, concierge at the Sheraton. “They are everywhere.”

“I don’t know how they got my chain,” said Gary, rubbing the red welt on his neck. “It was under my shirt.” He didn’t realize that the boys had learned to recognize the telltale ridge of fabric that covers any chain worth stealing.

“They’re usually seven-, eight-, nine-year-old boys,” Dora told us, “and they mob their victim in groups of six to ten. There is nothing one can do with so many little hands all over.”

We interviewed Petter Infante, 28, and Wilmer Sulca, 17, both grown-up pirañas. We found them at Lima’s University Park, where a comedy presentation was taking place in an entertainment pit, rather like a small amphitheater. Hundreds of people surrounded the pit, transfixed. Others loitered around the audience, more sat on cement benches, and many were asleep in the grass. Petter and Wilmer looked at us skeptically but agreed to talk to us after Gori, our interpreter, paid off a policeman patrolling the park.

Wilmer, a pickpocket in Lima, Peru.
Wilmer, a pickpocket in Lima

“But not here,” Wilmer said.

“Anywhere you want,” said Bob. Right, let’s enter their lair, and let’s take our fancy equipment in with us. The five of us piled into a taxi and Wilmer instructed the driver in staccato Spanish. Where were they taking us? I looked at Gori for assurance but our fine-boned archeology-student interpreter was not a bodyguard.

Wilmer led us into a garage-like cantina, dark, deserted, music blaring, disco lights flashing. The boys ordered huge bottles of Cristal beer. Bob wired Petter with a microphone and I set up our video camera, hyper-conscious of our vulnerability—read that: scared. My eyes were glued to Petter’s left arm, a mass of parallel scars, layer upon layer of them. A cut on his wrist was gaping open, infected. I used the gash to focus the camera.

Petter's arm. Pickpockets in Lima, Peru.
Petter’s arm.

“The first thing I ever stole was a chicken,” Petter said. “I was twelve years old, alone, and hungry. I had small brothers to take care of.” Petter’s expressive face told a many-chaptered tale of violence: his snaggle teeth were edged with gold, his cheeks crosshatched with scars.

“I’m best at stealing watches. I just grab it off someone walking, then run. I’m a very fast runner. The victim could never catch me. We call this arreba tar. It means run-steal.”

He stood to demonstrate his expertise. Bob stood to be victim. “You can see there’s nothing in his front pocket, it’s flat,” Petter said. Then he did a lightning fast dip and grab into Bob’s back pocket. The wallet flew upward with a grand flourish, like the follow-through of a tennis stroke.

“We’ll steal anything,” Wilmer said, “nothing in particular. It’s all easy. It’s like a game.” Wilmer then showed the same method from Bob’s front pocket, finishing with the same exuberant flourish. “Cocagado—I’m already gone. By the time the victim realizes, we’re cocagado.”

The knife scars on Petter’s arm are like stripes on an officer’s shoulders: you have to respect him. You see he’s tough and dangerous. He started cutting himself a few years ago.

“If the police catch you, you cut yourself and they release you. They don’t want you if you’re cut and bleeding.”

“I’m on the street nine years and I never cut myself,” Wilmer said. “I don’t like to do that. We don’t have the same philosophy, Petter and I. He likes to cut himself, I do not. We think differently.”

(A police officer explained that an injured arrestee must be taken to a hospital, which requires hours of paperwork. If an arresting officer is near the end of his shift, he may not want to pursue such lengthy formalities.)

Petter and Wilmer, pickpockets in Lima, are opportunists, pirañas grown into hardened thieves. Petter thinks nothing of threatening his victims with a knife. I don’t know if he ever has or would use it. The boys’ main operative is speed.

Petter's cuts. Pickpockets in Lima, Peru.
Petter’s cuts

“We wait at the bus stops and look for someone with a good watch, or something else to take. We wait until the bus doors are ready to close then grab it and run. And sometimes we grab things through the open windows of the bus. We reach inside and grab cellphones, watches, glasses, purses, anything.”

Opportunists look for sure bets, for temptations, for the fat wallet protruding from a back pocket “like a gift,” as a pickpocket in Prague told me. “We call it …˜the other man’s pocket,'” a Russian thief revealed; “the sucker pocket,” said another. “Tourists make it too easy,” complained a man in Prague whose family members were admitted thieves.

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

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

Theft in South Africa

A tour of the muti market, where witchdoctors sell traditional medicine.
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.
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.
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
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.

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

Chapter Three: Getting There—With all your Marbles

© Copyright 2008-2010 Bambi Vincent. All rights reserved.

For more on alternative souvenirs, listen to the Tiger Lillies’ song in this post.