The Hoodwinked show tour was a resounding success.
I’d like to credit the director, Jim Millan, for his vision and clever construction of the production. And con artist Todd Robbins, the brilliant writer and deliveryman of subtle humor, the best of which is stated under his breath, reserved for those paying attention.
And on Twitter, I saw: “Sun 23 Nov 08 | 02:56 GMT just got home from Hoodwinked, starring Todd Robbins, Banachek, Bob Arno, and Richard Turner. Fabulous! | twitter.com”
Hoodwinked played at the State Theater in Easton, PA.
Hoodwinked opened Tuesday night at the gorgeous State Theater in Easton, PA. It was the first show of our five-city east coast tour and we couldn’t be happier with it. Spectacular theater, perfect tech, 1,000 people packed in, all of whom shot out of their seats for an enthusiastic standing ovation.
Richard Turner, Banachek, Todd Robbins, Bob Arno.
It was a huge success.
We’re playing Lyman Center for the Performing Arts in New Haven tonight. The tour is only six shows in five cities in five days. Here’s the remaining show schedule.
In a souk swirling with activity, we found a corner suitable for photos. This man suddenly danced in front of our camera, then danced away.
There was plenty of clowning around in Muscat last week. In the souk, Bob put a camera on a tripod and walked away from it. We wouldn’t do that in most of the places we visit, including other countries under strict Sharia law. But this Omani souk, crowded with locals, had a comfortable, family atmosphere.
Many women in Oman are completely covered, even their eyes.
Bob held a remote and snapped a few test shots. Without warning, this happy man danced into our shot. These two women also stepped in front of the shutter. A large number of women were completely covered, not even eye slits in their black face veils. Some wore sunglasses on top of full face veils.
I understand that Muslim women must cover themselves, but in 110 degree heat, their multiple layers must be torture. Bob was drenched in a loose, light-as-air shirt. I was hot in my two skimpy layers.
Some Omani tassels are in a contrasting color. I wanted to sniff one, but that would be too unseemly.
The local women wore long pants and long sleeves under their abayas and veils, and some wore scarves, too. Omani women wear very long abayas, “taller than themselves,” a custom which dates back to their Bedouin days, when even a woman’s footprints in the sand should not be seen. The long gown gracefully erased them. Omani men wear a tassel at the neck of their dishdasha, which is drenched in scent to enhance male-to-male hugs.
Bob Arno looks up to something as he pretends to relax with men in a souk.
Bob plopped down among a group of men who happily gave permission to be photographed, despite their dubious expressions here. Turns out they were right to doubt the intentions of the tall skinny Western man with unseemly bare legs.
It wasn’t long before Bob had the watch of one of the men. After a suitable moment of laughter from the others, Bob returned the watch and was admonished with a smile.
Bob Arno practices thievery in the souk. He steals a watch in a split second.
I’m happy to report that Bob left town with both hands intact.
At the Muscat airport, we had to sit in the lobby an hour, waiting for check-in to begin. We found chairs in a “family section,” which was filled mostly with women (about 30) and small children, and a few couples. About half the women were fully covered; meaning, not even eyes showing. The rest were bare-faced or only eyes showing, plus one Indian in a sari, and one Muslim nanny in an ordinary headscarf. I watched the little children run around, ages 2 to 6, and wondered how they identified their mothers. The women had no peripheral vision; I wondered if they can even see to step off a curb.
Bob was gently scolded for his theft. It could have been much worse.
High-end shops are popular in the Arab world. Women buy the latest Prada and Versace outfits, then cover them with abayas. At social gatherings, the women gather in a private room and remove their abayas.
Bob and I are proud to announce our mini East Coast tour this November. We’re excited to be doing a ticketed show, open to the public, and we’re thrilled to be working with three other enormously talented con artists, all in one show.
So often we’re asked where Bob can be seen live, but all his performances these days are private corporate events. Finally, for one week in November, you can buy a ticket and see the World’s Only Legal Pickpocket live on stage.
Prepare to be conned…
The show, Hoodwinked, stars Todd Robbins, Banachek, and Richard Turner, along with Bob Arno. You can read about the four of them in my earlier post.
At the Atlanta airport last week, a limo driver stood holding a sign marked “Bob Arno.” Next to him stood another driver holding a sign marked “Kevin Mitnick.” You remember Kevin Mitnick, the young hacker imprisoned for five years, released in early 2000. Remember the “Free Kevin” campaign? The guy who popularized the term “social engineering”? Kevin calls himself a non-profit hacker, since he hacked into computer systems for the fun and challenge, and gained nothing of significance.
We knew Kevin would be in Atlanta—we were all there to present at ASIS, the huge security industry conference. But Kevin was flying in straight from a job in Colombia, so we didn’t expect to arrive in sync.
First we social-engineered his driver to learn where Kevin would be staying. Same hotel as us. Then the chatty driver said that Kevin had been due in two hours ago. Huh. We left a note with the driver inviting Kevin to dinner later and left.
The airport parking attendant held us hostage. Our driver had given him the parking ticket, but he wouldn’t raise the barrier to let us pass. Something was wrong with his computer, he said. We waited. After five minutes, we requested our ticket be returned so we could go to one of the other booths, which were all empty. No car was behind us, either. The attendant refused. Bob got out of the car and demanded the ticket back, fed up with our driver’s polite style of dealing with this ticket moron. No luck. The man kept his head down in his glass booth, impervious. Neither logic nor threats worked, and it was twelve minutes before we were allowed to exit the airport parking.
We caught up with Kevin several hours later, and he told a hold-up tale that made thoughts of our little delay evaporate completely. U.S. Customs had detained him and questioned him about his many trips to Colombia.
“I have a girlfriend there,” Kevin said.
“Have you ever been arrested?”
“Yes.” Kevin couldn’t lie to federal agents.
“What for?”
“Hacking.”
“Were you hacking in Colombia?”
“Yes, but that’s my job. I was hacking for a company that hired me, to see if their system is secure.”
As Customs officers began examining Kevin’s luggage, his cell phone rang. It was his girlfriend in Bogota, hysterical. Meanwhile, an officer lifted Kevin’s laptop. Kevin wasn’t concerned about it. He routinely wipes his hard drive before crossing borders, shipping an external drive containing his data to his destination. Everyone in the field of information security knows the Department of Homeland Security’s new policy:
Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies…
“FedEx called,” the girlfriend said in her poor English, “they found cocaine in the hard drive!”
Kevin’s face went white and was instantly drenched in sweat. He wondered who could have put cocaine in his hard drive: his girlfriend? the packing/shipping storefront where he dropped it off? He assumed, understandably, that the hard drive seizure somehow prompted this Customs search.
“What are you doing here in Atlanta?” the Customs officer demanded.
“Speaking at the ASIS conference, moderating a panel on internet abuses. Here, I’ll show you.” He took the laptop and launched Firefox, intending to open the ASIS keynote web page. First, he hit “clear private data” and glanced at the officer, who instantly realized his own stupidity. The officer snatched back the computer.
HID card spoofer.
Other officers pulled suspicious items from Kevin’s bags. Out came another laptop, which they started up, thinking they’d found gold, unaware that they’d need a password and dongle to access the real guts of that machine. Then they pulled out a large, silvery, antistatic bag and extracted its weird contents.
“They thought they found the mother-lode,” Kevin told us, able to smile in retrospect. And we could imagine why, looking at the thing.
“What’s this, huh?” the agent smirked. Like, how are you going to explain this one away? We gottcha now!
“It’s an HID key spoofer,” Kevin explained to a blank face. “Like your ID card there. You just wave your card at the door to go through, right? I just need to get close to your card and press a little button here. Then I can go through, too. This thing becomes a copy of your card key.”
“Why do you have it?” the officer demands accusingly.
“Because I demonstrate it at security conferences like ASIS.”
Somehow, Kevin kept his cool throughout four hours of grilling. When he was finally allowed to use a phone, he called an FBI agent who was to be on the panel he’d be moderating, and the FBI agent cleared him.
Having lost so much time, Kevin declined our dinner invitation, since he needed to prepare for his presentation. After listening to his long tale, Bob and I headed out to dinner alone. We found the French American Brasserie—quite worth raving about. http://www.fabatlanta.com/ Although we both ordered moules marinière, hardly a test for a brasserie, we enjoyed the meal thoroughly, along with the decor, ambiance, and service.
Kevin had been red-flagged, of course. He found out later that Customs knew nothing of the cocaine in his hard drive. He also found out that there wasn’t any cocaine in his drive. There may have been a few grains on the outside of the package, but it came from Colombia, right? Still, the drive had to be ripped open to determine that it was drug-free, and it wasn’t clear whether or not the disk itself had been damaged.
Caught-in-the-act criminals aren’t always keen on conversation. “Why I should talk to you!” some say. We’ve been threatened with rocks, hit, spit upon, flipped off, and mooned. But we’re constantly astonished at how many thieves talk to us. Why do they do it? We don’t flash badges at them, we don’t dangle handcuffs. The outlaws don’t know who we are or what’s behind our front. Might we be undercover cops? Hard to imagine, with our flimsy body structures and frequent lack of local language.
Interviewing thieves
My husband, Bob Arno, can usually find a common language for an interview, though he or the perp may have limited ability with it. Sometimes we have a translator with us or can snag one, impromptu. Most importantly, Bob has a unique advantage: he has worked for forty years as a pickpocket.
These pickpockets saw our video camera and let us know what they thought of us.
Inside knowledge, familiarity with moves and challenges, and level dialogue allay our subjects’ suspicions. Or perhaps they’re highly suspicious, nervous, and confused. Ultimately, they don’t know what to make of us.
Okay, so Bob’s a stage pickpocket. He steals from audience members in a comedy setting and always returns his booty. But the physical techniques are the same, the distraction requirement, the analysis of body language, the sheer balls. And Bob has that other illicit necessity: grift sense. He can sense a con, he can play a con.
No doubt our interviewees intuit that in only moments. Next thing we know they’re buying us a beer, accepting our invitation to lunch or, in our favorite case, offering us lucrative work as partners.
While victims relate their anger, inconvenience, and bemusement, their perpetrators tell tales of persecution, desperation, an unjust world, or alternative beliefs in the rights of ownership.
Off stage but on duty: Bob Arno films thieves on public transportation, here with a hidden camera in his right hand. A Thief on Thieves Conning Criminals into Conversation
Las Vegas — Who said it takes a thief to know a thief? The Tall Swede Journal detained a legal one to tell about his criminal cohorts.
Tall Swede Journal:When you’re not on stage, you find, follow, and film street thieves in action. That’s not a common pursuit, is it?
Bob Arno: I don’t think so. My wife and I might be the only ones who take it to such a sophisticated level.
TSJ: You seek out dangerous criminals with your wife?
BA: They’re usually not dangerous. But we can never be certain.
TSJ: Why might they be dangerous?
Bob speaks with two slippery pickpockets in Estonia.
BA: Many have drug habits, so they’re unpredictable, and so is their level of desperation. Others have such long arrest records, they may do anything in an attempt to avoid jail. And others may be illegally in the country. Desperate, hunted people who are already on the wrong side of the law may feel they have little to lose.
TSJ: Bob, were you ever on the other side? You must have been.
BA: You won’t find a police record on me!
TSJ: I know, we’ve checked. How, then, do you find these thieves? How do you recognize what they are?
BA: We hang out in the environments that are suitable for this sort of occupation and we focus on behavior. A person intending to steal exhibits certain necessary “tells.” He must look at his target, watch for police, beware of curious bystanders, and surreptitiously maneuver his target into a viable position. He usually also carries a “tool,” something to cover his moves, but it’s almost always an ordinary object which alone wouldn’t cause suspicion.
“I claim [to the thief] to be in the same
profession, but I don’t elaborate. I don’t
tell them that I only steal on stage.”
TSJ: Would it be fair to say that you profile?
BA: It would be fair to say that we profile behavior.
TSJ: You mean that a thief doesn’t behave like a citizen or tourist?
BA: He certainly wishes to, but a trained observer can see through his charade.
TSJ: Any other way you find thieves?
BA: Yes. By allowing them to steal my own wallet. I stuff it with cut paper and shove it deep into my pocket. I have a wallet that’s been stolen over a hundred times.
TSJ: How do you get it back?
BA: Sometimes I steal it back! Or I steal something else from the thief, like his cell phone or sunglasses. Then I offer to trade his item for my wallet. All of this is simply to start a conversation and establish rapport.
TSJ: Then they open up to you? Why don’t they just run?
An Italian thief greets Bob with hugs and kisses, then introduces him to his pals (Filmed with a hidden camera.)
BA: They’re curious about who I am. I claim to be in the same profession they are in, but I don’t elaborate. I don’t tell them that I steal on stage, and they don’t understand the concept of returning stolen items. So, yes. About half of them are willing to talk and the other half prefer to disappear into the crowd.
TSJ: What do they reveal? What do you learn from them?
BA: Techniques, motivations, their lifestyles, the politics that allow them—or force them, from their perspective—to steal for a living.
TSJ: And what do you do with the data you gather?
BA: I train law enforcement and security agencies, I teach travelers how to avoid becoming victims, I’ve written a book, and I testify as an expert witness.
TSJ: Seems to be a useful pursuit, if an unusual one.
BA: Yes. And it also satisfies the original intent, which was to adapt street techniques for use in my stage show. But it turns out that the intelligence is appreciated by more than just my audience.
TSJ: Are you still actively researching street crime?
BA: Absolutely! We focused on Central America recently. We spent significant time in Panama interviewing a very dangerous gang [article coming shortly], and we are planning to revisit the Middle East later this year.
TSJ: I have to ask you once more: have you ever stolen for real?
BA: I have a very fine soap collection.
TSJ: Alright Bob, I’ll leave it at that. Thanks very much for speaking with The Tall Swede Journal.
This interview was originally published in The Tall Swede Journal.
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.
Â
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.
The UK comedy guide Chortle.co.uk reviewed the Just For Laughs Craig Ferguson Gala. The most interesting part of the review:
The next act, Bob Arno, steals material. Ties, belts, watches, cellphones and wallets, mainly—as he’s an expert pickpocket. He romps through his act with verve and speed, rattling through some polished, witty banter as he displays his amazing talent. The biggest thing this lively, compelling performer stole, however, was the show.
Along with the Montreal Gazette proclaiming Bob Arno as “best act,” we’re happy.
