drug – Thiefhunters in Paradise

Hotel drink-drugging (Hotel oddity #41)

drink-drugging; devil's breath; scopolamine; burundanga

The Mysterious Case of the Uninvited Hotel Room Night Visitors

“UNBELIEVABLE!” our friend Donny said when we unexpectedly met in the morning. “Bizarre! I must have had ghosts in my hotel room last night!”

Though we hadn’t seen him in more than a year, nothing mattered but last night’s hotel experience. Donny was beside himself. It was twilight zone.

Two of my favorite things when traveling:
1. Being invited to dinner at someone’s home (rare).
2. The unplanned meeting of friends from elsewhere (more common).

Bob and I were staying at an exceptional hotel in Guatemala City, the near-perfect Westin Camino Real. Donny was staying elsewhere. His story tumbled out.

He’d checked into his hotel late the night before after a long flight. He went up to his room and, without much messing around, went soon to sleep.

In the morning, he found:
• A broken glass on the floor;
• One shard of glass in the trashcan;
• A small towel on the floor;
• Two empty soda cans moved from the desk to the bathroom;
• His Kindle still plugged into the extension outlet, but:
• The extension cord now unplugged and stretched across the floor in a perfectly straight line.

None of these things fit his behavior, he said. He’s a very light sleeper, and would certainly have heard a glass drop and shatter. He’s a neatnik, and would have cleaned up broken glass immediately. He wouldn’t move empty cans to the bathroom, he’d put them into a trash can. He did not use a towel the night before.

Uh, huh, I teased, it was the woman you brought up with you! Donny wasn’t in a humorous mood. He was truly mystified. Ghosts were the only explanation he could think of. He was spooked.

You drank too much, I tried. Did you drink on the plane?

“I had a drink in the lobby,” Donny recalled. A welcome drink. “But I’m a drinker,” he said, “a drink is nothing for me. That’s not it.”

Hmmm, a drink in the lobby. What kind of hotel was it?

“Small, local, like someone’s private mansion,” Donny said. “Friendly.” Maybe 15 rooms, total.

Drink-drugging

I’m going to say that Donny’s drink was drugged. Possibly with scopolamine, aka Devil’s Breath. It was an inside job. After Donny collapsed in bed (without washing up, I note), an employee with a key entered the room and searched for cash. The would-be robber knew how long the drug would take to knock Donny out and when he could safely enter the room.

Donny’s wallet was in his pants pocket, and the pants were on a chair. The wallet was searched and replaced—Donny had traveled without cash. No credit cards were taken. Nothing from his suitcases. His perp was looking for cash, and only cash. In Guatemala, the average monthly salary is less than $300. Had something obvious been taken, Donny’s Kindle, for example, there would have been accusations and immediate trouble. Cash… who’d notice?

Let’s say Donny’s drink was spiked. The thief had done this before and knew how soon he could enter. He rummaged through Donny’s wallet, then bumped into the desk, knocking over the two drink cans and the glass. He glances at Donny, who’s out cold. He picks up the two cans and a big shard of glass and takes them into the bathroom, where he grabs a face towel, intending to sweep up the glass and soda dribbles. But he hears something—Donny stirs, or maybe he hears a colleague in the hall. He freezes, then flees.

The only puzzle remaining is the electric cord. Donny had bent under the desk to plug his Kindle into the multi-outlet extension cord that was on the floor. He stood and placed his Kindle on the desk, and noticed that it wasn’t charging. He bent again and flipped a switch on the extension cord, confirmed that the Kindle was charging, and left it.

When he woke up, the Kindle was still plugged into the extension cord, but the extension cord had been unplugged from the wall. And its plug end was far from the wall socket now; it was under the foot of the bed. The cord was stretched perfectly straight from under the desk (opposite the foot of the bed) across the floor. Precisely—not haphazardly. That cord could not have been accidentally kicked, Donny said, as it had been well under the desk. This cord is what spooked Donny most. And I can’t think of an explanation.

Also, the Kindle had not charged more than 10% or so, meaning the plug had been pulled shortly after Donny fell asleep.

Donny did not wake up groggy or foggy-headed. He noticed the broken glass, missing soda cans, and towel right away. His thought process was as follows: Did I do that? No, I did not do that. Was someone in here? No, I would have woken up. WTF? A ghost?

Since nothing seemed to be missing and he had an early checkout, Donny did not mention the mystery to the hotel staff. Anyway, he’s not a confrontational type. Also, any hotel can find itself with a rogue employee.

My drink-drugging theory was novel to him, but a better hypothesis than ghosts, which had been all he’d come up with. Anyone else have a theory? Or some possible logic about that extension cord?

Devil’s Breath robbery/rape drug, aka burundanga

Devil's Breath drug, burundanga, scopoamine

Devil’s Breath drug, aka burundanga

Hard to tell fact from fiction when researching “the world’s scariest drug” called Devil’s Breath, burundanga, and scopolamine. The second- and third-hand reports, of which there are many, seem to be well-intentioned warnings and FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt).

The dosing methods and effects on the victims are duly terrifying. But what good is a warning if there is no possible way of protecting against the event? How can one prevent a stranger from blowing a bit of powder in one’s face? Or tainting a card or paper with the dust and showing it to the mark? “Excuse me, do you know this address/store/location?” —and you’re done for.

One thing is certain though. This 35-minute documentary about Devil’s Breath is fantastic, whether true or dramatized. The characters in it are all credible. The victims are believable and the perpetrators are colorful and convincing. Why would perps reveal the awful details of their criminal trade? Well, that doesn’t surprise me, given my experience making documentaries about thieves.

You probably know scopolamine as a drug for motion sickness. Perhaps you’ve worn the patch on a boat or ship. Although reports of criminal use of scopolamine are not new, and the video’s been around for a while, I’ve posted it here because I think the documentary is so good.

My friend Carolyn Hamilton, who lives in Ecuador, just mentioned that warnings of Devil’s Breath are swirling. Reports or rumors, I’m not sure. Carolyn photographed the brugmansia tree soon after moving to Ecuador, simply because of its beauty. Later, in a native plants class, she learned that “people plant it outside their bedroom windows so they will sleep better at night! Among the indigenous peoples it’s considered good luck to have one planted at your doorstep. And it’s known to be poisonous.” The photo above is from Carolyn’s neighbor’s yard.

Have any of you been drugged with Devil’s Breath? Have any of you heard a first-hand report from someone else who was drugged?

Edit 12/13/15: The New York Times just published an article, The Swindled Samaritan, which tells a first-person account of burundanga-drugging. The victim’s apartment was totally emptied by the drugger-thieves and the victim had no memory of the event. Her apartment lobby video showed her bringing the thieves in, and the doorman described how those thieves carried out her possessions.

con drug scam thieves

Knock-out gas on overnight trains

Atul and Smriti Shah experienced it first-hand. “It happened during the night,” they concluded. “The entire compartment was sprayed with some sort of gas that knocked us out. Then our suitcase was slowly extracted from under our seat, the lock twisted loose and, with all the time in the world, the suitcase was looted.”

Atul and Smriti live with their small daughters in Mumbai, India, where railway is the customary way to crisscross the country. For the occasion of a relative’s marriage, the family traveled to the town of Kanpur, in Uttar Pradesh. As tradition dictates, they brought along their finest clothes and jewelry to wear to the many matrimonial celebrations and ceremonies. As a high-caste woman from a wealthy family, now married to a successful businessman, Smriti carried an enviable display of gold and diamonds.

“She had diamonds on her fingers and in her nose and ears,” Atul explained with pride, “and gold bangles and necklaces. Also, she wore the good-luck vermilion mark on her forehead that Indians always wear when traveling away from home.”

After the wedding and family visits, the Shahs boarded the train for the twenty-hour journey home. They had one suitcase, but it was a large one: fifty kilos, Atul estimated. It contained all the family’s finery, including Smriti’s jewelry, and had a small padlock on the zipper tabs. Atul forced the suitcase under Smriti’s seat in the train compartment, where it was tightly lodged. They did not open the suitcase for the duration of the journey.

The Shahs boarded in the evening, had a meal packed by Smriti’s mother, and settled down for the night.

“The strange thing is that none of us woke up during the night,” Smriti told me. “Even the children slept the night through, and they never do.”

She remembers a vague sensation of bitterness in her mouth during the night, then the desire for water. But she remembers too the lethargy she felt, the heaviness of her limbs.

Food- and drink-drugging has long been a problem on trains, but could knockout gas really be in a thief’s arsenal? In my early research, doctors had doubted the likelihood of a thief acquiring the right gas and the victims not waking from the smell. I went back to the doctors and this time they all agreed it could happen. Chloroform is often used in primitive surgical conditions and has no smell at all, some said. An anesthesiologist mentioned Halothane, which would be readily available from any surgical facility or veterinarian. Halothane has a slight odor but not enough to wake an already-sleeping person.

“Within twenty or thirty minutes,” Dr. Jared Kniffen told me, “someone could be in a deep enough sleep so that you could enter the room without his awareness. The danger of this is you could kill someone if too much were used. There’s a second possibility—a gas called Cevoflurane. It’s odorless, but much more difficult to obtain.”

But wouldn’t the robber himself be knocked out? I asked.

“There are ways to avoid that,” Dr. Kniffen said. “A certain travel supply house sells a smoke hood that gives twenty minutes of oxygen.” It’s meant for use in escaping from a burning building, but a clever thief might employ one for another use.

It sounds too sophisticated to me, too troublesome and risky. But if the reward were a treasure chest like Smriti Shah’s, it must be worth one thousand times the risk of simply snagging a laptop from a business traveler.

Despite the Shahs’ conviction, gassing on an overnight train is only a remote risk; my paranoid apprehension on our journey to Prague was out of proportion. Breaking into and stealing from compartments is a real risk though, and so is food- and drink-drugging. Nembitol, scopolamine, and benzodiazepine are the drugs most commonly slipped into food or drink, but only after the thief builds trust and confidence with the mark.

This is Part 3 of 3.Â Â — Part 1. —Â Part 2

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Three: Getting There—With all your Marbles

drug theft thieves train travel

Central and East European Train Crime

Railway mafia groups fight over territory along the thousands of kilometers of track across Central & Eastern Europe. The most lucrative connections are those between major cities which are most frequented by foreign tourists who are filthy rich, naive, gullible, and can afford to shed some of their wealth, in the eyes of the criminals who specialize in robbing sleeping victims.

…˜The mafia groups fight amongst themselves for territory and they use sleeping gas to subdue their victims,’ said the sheriff of a Polish railway station on the Polish-Czech border with over 30 years experience in his job who requested that his name be withheld. …˜They are very skilled and use the ventilation system to gas their victims or quietly inject the fast-acting gas into their cabins through a slightly opened door.’

Foreign tourists are followed and carefully watched. There is no easier place to rob them than in a train which they essentially control on some tracks way out in nowhere. They attack you when you are asleep, that’s their style and that’s their specialty.

—Central & East European CrimiScope
www.ceeds.com/cee-crimiscope [defunct]

THAT READ, we traveled exceptionally lightly for our week-long research trip to Prague. One change of clothes, computers and camera equipment, money, passports, and plastic watches each.

We boarded the Venice-to-Prague overnight train at 8 p.m. on a Saturday. After being forced to surrender our tickets to an unidentified man (who we eventually learned was our “attendant”), we were shown to a gritty compartment. Dust clumps the size of rats swirled around the floor. Sad brown floral curtains of a coarse material hung above mismatched cushions and general grime. The bunks had been opened and made up for sleeping, with bed linen that seemed fresh and clean enough. But it was stifling hot in the un-air-conditioned train, and the stale air was of suffocating stillness.

There was no choice in the sweat-smelly and sweltering compartment but to leave the window open for air, despite the deafening, rackety-clackety clamor which made sleep all but impossible. In the dark hubbub, aromas told a tactless tale. The smell of sweet wood smoke rushed in, then fresh-cut hay, and later cow manure. At every stop the train’s brakes sliced the rhythmic clatter with ear-piercing shrieks. I clamped my palms to my overly-sensitive ears in agony.

Then, stationary in a depot or switching yard, sometimes for half an hour or more, I worried about that open window. Could someone reach in and grab a bag? Voices shouted, neighboring trains clanged and clattered: but even in the relative quiet, I was afraid to drop off to sleep. And without the circulation of air, our somber cell quickly grew hot and sour-smelling.

We had read so much about East European train robbers I was, frankly, petrified.

Bolt your door from the inside, I read.
One common, square-hole key opens all compartment doors, I read somewhere else.
Bring wire with which to secure your door, and tie down your belongings.
Sleep on top of your bags.
Don’t sleep!

What scared me most were the tales of the gassers, who knock you out in the dead of night by fumigating your compartment from under the door. Then they break in and help themselves to your belongings. My doctor friend Ann had said there was no gas she knew of that wouldn’t wake you up with its smell, or make you gag or throw up, or kill you. Was that supposed to be comforting?

I was primed for panic when aroused from a light and fitful nap by the quiet rattling of our door. I heard a key jiggle in the lock and the bolt was thrown. The door was yanked open an inch and stopped by the safety chain, which held. A flashlight shined at me through the crack and several male voices mumbled quietly.

Not very sneaky, I thought. But maybe they have knives! They couldn’t have expected as light a sleeper as I. Or—I sniffed the air—maybe they’ve gassed us, not expecting an open window to dilute the chemical.

“Passports,” Bob murmured from the bunk below me—not the night-train-novice I was. We were at the Austrian border.

Thus experienced, I was prepared for the repeat performance several hours later at the Czech border. We were not well-rested when we arrived at Prague at 9:00 in the morning.

But arrive we did, with bags and tickets intact.

This is Part 1 of 3. Part 2

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Three: Getting There—With all your Marbles

drug robbery theft thieves train

Drink-drugging on the rise

Drink-drugging as a means to theft and/or sex is not new, but on the rise. It’s increasing in Colombia and known to be an M.O. in Russia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Ecuador, and many other countries. I didn’t expect to see Tokyo on the list, but there it is. Sad.

I forgot where I heard this, but it’s funny: When given a drink by a stranger, say “It’s one of my country’s traditions to trade drinks with the host.” Hard to imagine doing that.

Anyway, it’s a good idea to keep this in mind when offered food or drink by a stranger. And try not to leave your food or drink unattended.

drink drug robbery theft

Street crime in Rome

In a quick visit to Rome last month, Bob and I found it pretty quiet on the streets, theft-wise. Granted, we only spent a few hours on the prowl, but given our 15 years experience thiefhunting in Rome, we know where to look. We usually find an eclectic mix of Italian, Roma, North African, and East European thieves, plus many we don’t speak to, many who won’t tell, and many who lie.

On this visit, we spent at least half an hour shadowing a mixed-gender threesome halfheartedly preying. As they trudged along the tourist trail, one of their members entered each souvenir shop along the way and stood among the customers. Another spent time among the postcard stands. They were an extraordinarily scruffy group, whose appearance certainly limits their access and proximity to targets. After a lethargic effort, they disbanded at a bus stop. We engaged two of them as they scattered, and learned that they were Polish.

Other than this group, we saw very few “suspects” in the Metro, on Bus 64, hanging around at the usual favorite bus stops, or on the streets. Termini, the main train station, was littered with dodgy characters, as usual, but we didn’t linger, preferring to survey the scene outside the station.

Are Italians finally fed up enough to do something about crime? At least crime committed by immigrants, it seems. A couple of telling surveys reported in The Guardian hint to a new, anti-immigrant climate in Italy, and especially anti-Gypsy.

81% of Italian respondents said they found all Gypsies, Romanian or not, “barely likeable or not likeable at all”, a greater number than the 64% who said they felt the same way about non-Gypsy Romanians.

and

Romanians were among the 268 immigrants rounded up in a nationwide police crackdown on prostitution and drug dealing this week, after new prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s likening of foreign criminals to “an army of evil”.

Word has been out on the street for some time. “Jaga” and Ana, a Romanian pickpocket couple we interviewed at length in Rome in 2003, told us they were planning to move to Spain, where it is easier to live and to conduct their business. They are not the only thieves to express this sentiment, which helps explain why Spain has such a preponderance of pickpockets.

Leaning tower of Pisa and cherries for sale

Pisa, too, was empty of the sticky-fingered women and children we usually find at the train station, bus station, and all around the Piazza del Duomo. Locals there said they had noticed the pickpockets’ disappearance about a month ago.

But just when we thought Italy might be cracking down on crime, we heard last month’s terrible story of the American couple served drugged cappuccino in a Rome train station, where they were then robbed. Upon awaking, the man stumbled onto the tracks and was killed by a train. The article continues:

Gangs using narcotic spray to carry out train robberies are also on the rise in Italy, police said. The gangs board sleeper trains and drug passengers in couchettes before hopping off at stations with valuables.

I tend to think the crime lull we sensed in our short survey of Rome’s previous hot spots was actually an anomaly. Or the balloon has been squeezed and the thieves are just elsewhere. I hope that we soon find another opportunity to re-investigate Rome.

Sadly, though, porcini season will be over by our next visit. There is nothing like porcini pizza, especially in Pisa.

drug gypsy Italy pisa pizza porcini Roma Rome street crime thieves

PICKPOCKETS, CON ARTISTS, GANGSTERS, THIEVES, AND TRAVEL