Kharem, a pickpocket we\’ve observed in Barcelona since 2001.
Kharem’s Lucky Haul
Kharem, a pickpocket in Spain, sometimes chooses Barcelona’s airport over the rich pickings of the city. When Bob and I again found Kharem at work on La Rambla, nine months after we’d previously interviewed him, we asked how he’d been.
“Supremely good!” Kharem said. He swept his thumbtip against his forehead, fingers fisted, in a quick, subtle gesture.
“He actually said …˜son-of-a-bitch good,'” our translator clarified. Our friend Terry Jones was tagging along on our prowl that day. His own street crime expertise was more in the bag snatch discipline than the pickpocket branch. Although he’d watched the local thieves with fascination and sometimes wrote about them, he’d never interviewed one. Now he translated our conversation, intrigued and electrified by the novelty.
Kharem at work in Barcelona, carrying a coat with which to hide his thefts.
“But haven’t there been fewer tourists?” Bob asked. We’d last met Kharem just a few weeks before September 11. “Let’s get away from the crowd and talk.”
“The work is good at the airport,” he said. “I robbed an Egyptian there. It was son-of-a-bitch good. But yes, there are fewer tourists and it has affected my business. Also, there are more policemen around.”
The four of us ambled up a narrow side street in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. I tightened my grip on our camera bag. Bob was filming Kharem openly.
“Do the police arrest you more than they did last year?”
“No, they don’t arrest me. They just take the money and let me go,” Kharem said, flipping his thumbtip against his forehead again. “The police are not very good; they don’t have much experience. I’m better than they are, in the street.” He smiled bashfully and looked at the ground.
“Is there more bag snatching?”
“Yes, but they’re young people who don’t know how to work. If all you want is a wallet, you can take it without violence. But these people don’t know how to work clean. They’re young, and some of them are on drugs. Many children have come from Morocco this year, since Spain and Morocco are side by side. These Moroccan children work in a crude and unsophisticated way.”
Kharem, perhaps pleased by our attention, clowns for our video camera. \’Let me be in your movies,\’ he said. Our good friend Terry, right, interpreted.
“I think he’s a little proud of his own skill and style,” Terry added.
“Besides La Rambla, I work in the metro and sometimes at the airport. The Egyptian I mentioned—it was a briefcase I took from him just last week in the airport. It had thousands of dollars in it.”
“How did you take it?” Bob asked.
“I threw some money on the floor,” he said, “let me show you.” He bent to take our canvas bag from the cobblestones where it was safely lodged between my feet. I looked at Bob, but he didn’t seem concerned about letting this known thief and now confessed bag snatcher handle our $15,000 sack of stuff.
Kharem lifted the bag and took two steps away. As if in slow motion, I watched our camera, mixer, mic, and tapes of fresh footage retreat, and waited to see Kharem lunge and dash away with a fine fee for little chat. We’d greeted him like old friends, I recalled; we hadn’t criticized his way of life. Must we show this much trust? He’s not our friend. And we certainly are not his. But the alternative was unpredictable.
It\’s hard not to like Kharem in conversation, but we remind ourselves: he\’s a thief.
I could have stopped him from taking our bag, or snatched it out of his hands, or just said “sorry, I don’t think so.” And what might Kharem have done then? Did we care about preserving a relationship for the future? Or did we just not care to insult a person who’d revealed to us the most intimate secrets of his life?
Kharem set the bag down gently at Terry’s feet, steadying it so it wouldn’t tip. He tossed a couple of €10 notes and Terry twisted to watch them flutter to the ground.
“He bent to get the money and I just walked off with his briefcase,” Kharem said, lifting our bag once again. He smiled, swiped his thumbtip against his forehead, and handed the bag to me.
“Did you know you’re wearing mismatched shoes?” a well-dressed Englishman said to our friend, Brooks, at London’s Heathrow airport one day.
Brooks was talking on his phone, frantic at finding out that he was supposed to be at London’s other airport, Gatwick. He locked eyes with the stranger. “I am not!” he said, refusing to be distracted. “And you’ll not succeed in grabbing my briefcase!”
Brooks had become security-obsessed hearing our tales.
“Pardon me, then. But you are.” The man walked away, intentions defeated, whatever they were.
Brooks finished his telephone call, feeling rather smug that he’d thwarted a thief who’d tried to distract him. Then he looked down at his shoes, only to see one tasseled, one buckled loafer.
Everyone knows not to leave bags unattended in airports and, lest we forget, we are relentlessly reminded by annoying announcements. Bag-stealing strategists are devious, though. Even if you aren’t looking away from your things, you may be connived into doing so. Questions by an apparently confused or puzzled foreigner touch our good-natured core and we want to help. A moment’s distraction is all an accomplice requires. Who would suspect that the pretty girl asking to borrow your pen is merely a diversion as her colleagues snag your bag?
Or, here’s a good one: you’re suddenly paged. Who would page you at an airport, possibly a foreign airport, or a stopover? Who even knows you’re there? You rush off to find the white courtesy phone, befuddled and worried. The accented voice on the line sounds unclear, yet urgent. You may be asked to write down a number, requiring some gymnastics while you extract a pen and find a scrap of paper. Have you looked away from your briefcase? Have you lost physical contact with it? Where is it, anyway?
Earlier, the thief had examined the object of his desire, your bag. Its luggage tag informed him of your name. The strategist paged you. He distracted you. He created his own plausible situation. Or, as Bob would say, he created a shituation.
TSA
Airports give the illusion of safeness, especially now with increased security. The swirling crowd of dazed travelers, lost or rushed or tired, makes a perfect haystack for the needle-like thief. Your bag might disappear before you even get inside, in all the curbside commotion. Long, tedious, check-in lines can be disorderly madness in some airports, inducing inattention when you need it most.
Computers and purses disappear, too, at airport security checkpoints. Guards have their hands full keeping order at the chaotic bottlenecks, and they’re watching for bigger fish than bag thieves. Don’t assume they’ll safeguard your bags.
Practically every television news program has shown this ruse. The scam occurs just after you’ve put your items on the belt. Before you walk through the metal detector, a stranger cuts in front as if in a hurry. The equipment buzzes and he has to back up and remove his watch, his coins, something. Meanwhile, you’re trapped in limboland and your bags are free-for-all on the so-called secure side.
If you’re traveling with another person, make a habit of this: one person goes through security first and collects her and your bags as they appear. The other waits to see that all bags go fully and safely into the x-ray machine, and watches the belt to see that it isn’t reversed, leaving your items vulnerable on the other side. If you’re alone, wait for any crowd at the checkpoint to pass, if you can, or be alert to anyone who barges in front of you after you’ve let go of your things.
Thieves in Prague: the three front center will get what the taxis don't.
After an eventful overnight train journey we were disgorged into a very foreign Sunday morning. Not a single sign in Prague’s main train terminal was in friendly English, or any other language we could make out; not even an exit sign. The station was haunted by solitary figures standing, smoking, watching, waiting. It took us half an hour to find a dismal tourist information booth. The grouchy attendant, stingy with his every word, pushed a map at us through a slit in his glass barrier and considered himself done. Averse to bribing a public servant, we persisted with our questions, formulating the same query in endless shapes. Finally, we extracted this gem: taxi fare to our hotel ought to be two hundred koruna, about six dollars.
The taxi drivers had something else in mind.
“Meter,” they said, “more fair.”
Our bags were loaded into the trunk and we got in.
“About how much,” we asked.
“Meter,” the driver insisted. Again we pressed for an estimate, and the driver finally said seven hundred. Seven hundred! Out we got, and out with our bags. The driver said something to the other waiting taxi drivers, and we were certain we wouldn’t get a ride from any of them. So we walked.
A few blocks down the street we flagged down a passing taxi. He too, suggested the meter. We said c’mon, about how much. Three hundred, he said. Okay. We watched the meter start spinning. No way was it a legal spin. As the meter crept to four hundred, we protested, and the driver agreed to a flat three hundred.
“The taxi drivers wanted seven hundred koruna!” I exclaimed in outrage to the hotel receptionist.
“They are thieves,” was his simple reply.
But they were not the thieves we were interested in.
I wonder if Bob and I should have bodyguards, like Roberto Saviano does. We, like Saviano, write about and expose the Camorra, Naples’ infamous mafia. The Camorra is not a crime family to fool with. If they don’t like you, they just kill you. Even if they do like you, because you’re just a tourist with money to spend (or have stolen), you might step in front of a flying bullet. These things happen in Naples.
Robert Saviano wrote the book Gomorrah, about the Camorra, in 2007. It’s been made into a film, which opens in the U.S. this week. Since publishing his book, Saviano has been housebound, despite living with a security detail. “I have not been able to go for a walk, go to a bookstore, to the cinema, to the theatre. Or even just grocery shopping,” he told The Wall Street Journal.
Quartieri Spagnoli
As thiefhunters, Bob and I have been mixing with the criminal element in Naples since 1993. I don’t remember how much we knew about the Camorra in the beginning of our research there. We knew a little, for sure, but not how ruthless they are, not how deep their tentacles reach. We should have been more scared. I mean, on our very first visit we got mugged. That experience left a lasting legacy with me: I still get a chill every time I hear motor-scooter buzzing behind me.
My scientifically-unfounded assumption is that pickpockets in Naples are low-level Camorra members. They steal right in front of police officers, who are also in on the game. About young gang members, a local says “they steal for money,” and “they shoot like it’s a video game.” In Naples, everyone’s part of the system. If higher-ups get word that we’re in town, will they be intrigued and want to talk? Might they show up at our door and threaten us? Will our rooms be broken into and equipment stolen? Will we be mugged again? A bone or two broken, just so we get the message? Am I a hysteric with a rich imagination? The truth is, Naples is dangerous. Not too dangerous for the ordinary visitor, but what about one who goes snooping about in mafia business? One who wants to expose the city’s dirty little secrets?
Port and commercial district of Naples
The Camorra
In Naples, everything is connected to the syndicate. Even if you’re not part of it, you pay up. In Rome, we met the owner of a men’s clothing store who told us how her Naples shop was destroyed and how they were extorted and threatened there until they closed up shop and fled to Rome. She cried as she told us this.
Shopkeepers in Naples pay about €1,000 ($1,300) a month as “protection;” supermarket managers pay about €3,000 a month. A report by the Italian retailers’ association Confesercenti, published last week, said organized crime had become Italy’s biggest industry.
The Confesercenti report estimated that organised crime groups take in 30 billion [euros] a year from the protection racket alone, a phenomenon that affects 160,000 businesses or 20% of all shops in Italy.
The extortion plague is particularly prevalent in the south. In the Sicilian towns of Palermo and Catania 80% of shops pay protection money. The figure slips to 70% across the water in Reggio Calabria and to 50% in Naples, although in some of the rundown suburbs of that city absolutely everyone pays.
Quartieri Spagnoli would be one of those rundown suburbs.
Another form of thievery in Naples is Rolex theft. It happens to any non-mafia member who dares to flash the easily identifiable status symbol in the city. Bob and I have spoken to countless victims, including Napolitanos (but mostly visitors). We’ve been to the home of the Rolex thieves, quivering at the doorstep as their pit bulls growled, too scared to film even with hidden cameras. Greetings, Camorra. We’re the Arnos!
Two thieves on scooters corner Bob in Quartieri Spagnoli
Closely related to Rolex theft, and possibly everything else going on in Naples, is the drug business. I remember a police officer we often met with in Barcelona ten years ago. He was Italian, and specialized in recognizing mafia bosses who’d had plastic surgery to change their appearance. He was intrigued with our work, and facilitated one of our important interviews with gypsy pickpockets in Barcelona. At the time, Bob and I didn’t understand why an Italian police officer with his knowledge-base would be working in Spain.
Now we read that a Camorra godfather and his henchman were captured in Madrid two weeks ago. “Neapolitan organised crime has created logistical bases in several major Spanish cities,” a Naples military police official said. They’re partnering with Colombian cartels in the cocaine business, stationed in Spain, Europe’s main welcome mat for drugs. Saviano, the author, says that “Spain is considered by many mafiosi as the best place to hide without interrupting their activities.” Seems that they were doing more than just hiding. Spain is wisening up though, having arrested many suspected Camorra members in the past few months, including a Camorra boss in Barcelona.
When police searched the hideouts of three arrested Comorra members near Naples a few months ago, they “found Carabinieri outfits and other disguises.” This first makes me think of “pseudo cops,” those who commit crimes while pretending to be police; then I think real cops, members of both the mafia and the police; and then I think dead cops. Of course there are endless uses for a police uniform if you’re a criminal.
Funiculi, funiculaaaaah….
How is it all related? We’re not mafia experts; I’d hate for us to step on the wrong toes, ask the wrong question, or peek around the wrong corner. Frankly, research in Naples scares me. When it goes well, it’s extremely exciting. If it goes wrong, how wrong can it go?Â
Why is crime in Naples allowed to flourish? I used to wonder this. I used to be amazed that it went on and on. If Bob and I could see it, surely the police and politicians could see it, too. Now, of course, I realize that it’s an integral part of the economics and politics of the city. It’s not meant to go away. Hopefully the terrible violence of the past few years is a temporary symptom. But the theft, the graft, the drugs, extortion, money-laundering, palm-greasing, conning and scamming—they’re all art forms. They’re tradition. The way of life. It’s unique among modern countries. Something you might expect to find in the third world, or in the old days. An anachronism.
Naples has much to brag about. Just look at all the types of thievery: The pickpocket. The pacco man (bait-and-switch). The Rolex snatcher. The scippatori (thieves who snatch from the back of a speeding scooter). The borseggio (bag snatcher). All against a rich backdrop of warmth and welcome, including the thieves who invite us for lunch or coffee (and insist on paying) (after they try to steal our wallet). They all have heart, soul, pride, shamelessness, and bravado. Luciano, whom we’ve known since 1998, raised his kids on pickpocketing, and now has five or six grandchildren. Salvatore, the star of our Playboy shoot, is quick to show pictures of his babies.
Charming but dangerous
Danger is a big part of Naples. Worry. Concern. Fear. Contrasted with the pleasures: the ambiance of the place, the charm, the incredible food, the picturesque beauty of the old city, the gravel-voiced men in the coffee bars, not to mention the great coffee, lemon granita on the street, multiple weekend wedding couples out for photo sessions within sight of all the thieves I’ve mentioned.
Bob and I became intimately involved with the Camorra the moment we stepped among the pickpockets of Napoli. As I’ve hinted above, and as the linked articles state, the mob is everywhere and touches everything. The Camorra was aware of us from the moment we hit the streets, at some level or other. How high up our presence is known, who knows? How long it will be tolerated, who knows? But if the mob bosses don’t want us sniffing around anymore, we’ll find out. We plunge ahead, but we acknowledge that we’re in real mafia-country, investigating family business. We might pretend ignorance, but we can’t ignore the danger. When you work on mob turf, you cannot ignore the mob.
A few days ago, a foreigner arrived at Mexico City’s international airport and exchanged money there. What he didn’t know was that he was being observed by lookouts. When he left the airport, his car was followed by two others. He was forced off the road and approached by gunmen, who simply shot him in the head when he resisted their demand for the cash.
By now everyone knows that Mexico has become a risky destination, thanks to drug gangs and their brutal operations. Police officers have been steadily targeted by the gangs, and are being killed from the top ranks to the bottom in scary numbers I can’t quote.
Last year, the director of the federal police division monitoring trafficking and contraband was killed, along with his bodyguard. So were other top police officials, including the head of Mexico City’s anti-kidnapping unit, and the director of national police operations against drug traffickers.
Little girls in Mexico playing with bottle caps.
All of Mexico is dangerous now, from the capital city to the most popular resort towns. Acapulco (the city in which Bob and I met), is now called a “violent Mexican resort.”
Tourists to Mexico are in the middle of it all. They are perceived to have cash: either on them, accessible by ATM, or available as ransom.
Mexican police say that the drug gangs now post lookouts at the airport money-exchange booths. The lookouts phone their colleagues outside the airport, who rob the visitors as they leave.
If an ATM must be used, it should be accessed only during the business day at large protected facilities (preferably inside commercial establishments, rather than at glass-enclosed, highly visible ATMs on streets).
About Mexico City specifically, the State Department suggests:
Arriving travelers who need to obtain pesos at the airport should use the exchange counters or ATMs in the arrival/departure gate area, where access is restricted, rather than changing money after passing through Customs, where they can be observed by criminals.
It’s easy and common for criminal gangs to recruit low-level airport employees as conspirators. I wouldn’t feel much safer in the “secure” arrival/departure gate areas.
Mexican citizens have long been the targets of express kidnapping and carjacking, along with the usual burglaries and robberies. Tourists have had to be alert to pickpockets, drink-druggers, taxi-robberies, and psuedo-cops.
Mondli and Hector purchase herbs from a witchdoctor at a South Africa muti market.
In Johannesburg for a string of corporate shows, we managed to find and talk to three pickpockets, one of whom claimed to be reformed. He is Mondli, seen here on the left, with Hector, 29 years old and still active. With a translator, we and the thieves went to the city’s enormous muti market, sprawled over many acres under a freeway overpass. Muti is traditional African medicine, made of plant and animal parts, and it is dispensed by a sangoma or inyanga, types of witchdoctor.
The witchdoctor gets a joke.
Mondli and Hector purchased herbs which, when boiled and drunk, and/or bathed in, will “make them invisible to police.” Mondli’s interest in this herb increased our skepticism of his reformed status.
The sangoma dissolved into laughter when the honest thief among us asked her if she had muti to make his penis smaller.
A sangoma's consultation house.
Elaborate consultation houses stand in the otherwise haphazard market. This one, on the right, was larger than most; others were precious dollhouses, barely wide enough to contain two adults.
We also interviewed a 24-year-old pickpocket named Sihle, who uses razor blades to slice the back pockets of men looking at magazines in bookshops. (Very specific M.O., no?) The wallet then drops into Sihle’s hand, he explained, while the razor blade is stored in a slit in his shirt cuff.
Another sangoma and consultation room.Medicinal plant and animal parts, plus human feet. Be glad this photo isn't larger!Bambi played, Bob wrestled, with a 14-week-old lion cub.
Off duty, we got VIP treatment at private game parks. At 14 weeks old, this lion cub enjoyed its last playdate with humans. Heavy and strong, it began to exercise its instinct to go for the neck, as Bob learned that day.
Pickpocket, left, pretends innocence after stealing a wallet from Diaz, right.
Bob and I looked at each other in disbelief. Only we knew the incredible odds we’d just beaten. To stroll into Rome’s Termini, the main train and subway station, pick a platform, peg a pair of old men as pickpockets, position a victim, and have it all work as if to a script, in under twenty minutes, on Take One… we were flabbergasted, giggly. The fact that the film crew’s hidden cameras captured it all was merely the cherry on top. This had been our hope and our plan, but we never dreamed we’d pull it off so quickly, if at all. Our prey were Italians; ordinary-looking, regular citizens. Not ethnic minorities, not immigrants, not identifiable outcasts. We’d begun this project for ABC 20/20 with this, the toughest challenge of them all.
Just last night, at dinner in a wonderfully touristy trattoria, investigative reporter Arnold Diaz and segment producer Glenn Ruppel had expressed their severe doubt. They wondered why ABC had allowed this frivolous endeavor, invested the time and significant expense in so improbable a venture. Hidden camera expert Jill Goldstein, serious videographer though she was, just seemed pleased to be along, on her first trip to Europe, her first trip abroad. The five of us ate an innumerable procession of courses any Italian would have pared by half, toasting luck first with Prosecco, then wine, grappa, and finally little glasses of thick, sweet limoncello.
Arnold Diaz interviews Bob Arno about pickpocketing techniques.
Bob and I had worried all the previous two weeks, fretting over myriad potential obstacles. How could we be certain to lead the crew to thieves, get Arnold Diaz pickpocketed, and get it all on film? How would we find the perps in all of Rome?
Our hopes slipped a little when we first met Arnold. With his refined Latin looks and flair for fashion, he blended right in with the local Italian crowd. He didn’t look like a typical American tourist, who may as well have the stars and stripes tattooed across the forehead. Arnold didn’t look like a tourist at all; rather, he looked like a European businessman. So we gave him a five-minute makeover. We slung a backpack on him, put a guidebook in his hand, a camera around his neck, and a “wife” by his side (me!) and, poof—there he was: a tasteful tourist, ready to be ripped off.
Let’s look at the anatomy of a pickpocket victim. I’m thinking of a couple I saw in Barcelona not too long ago. They had the word “gull” plastered all over them, a perfect lesson in what not to do. They were affluent-looking: the woman wore a slinky black dress, a big blonde wig, and garish diamonds from here to there, real or not. Her watch was thin, gold, and diamond encrusted. She carried a designer purse and a recognizably expensive shopping bag. The man wore a floppy black suit, trendy black t-shirt, and a gold Rolex. He carried a large camera bag with a Sony label on it. They stood utterly bewildered, map in hand, staring at street signs. I had an urge to educate them, but what could they change right then and there? I’d only manage to scare them. Bob and I want people to enjoy their travels. We mean to raise awareness, not paranoia.
If this couple were the ideal paradigm of oblivion, they’d plop down at a sidewalk café. She’d sling her purse (unzipped) over the back of the chair by its delicate strap and he’d put his camera bag on the ground beside or under his chair. He would not put his foot through the strap. He’d hang his jacket on the back of his chair. Is anything in its pockets? They’d both relax and watch the people parade, as they should. When the bill arrived, he’d leave his thick wallet on the table in front of him while he waited for change. Eventually he’d realize there would be no change, because he hadn’t counted on a cover charge, a charge for bread, a charge for moist, scented, plastic-wrapped napkins, a built-in tip, and water that cost more than wine.
How many mistakes did they make?
A purse at risk.
“Tourists are more vulnerable than anyone else on the streets,” Bob says. “And not only because they often carry more money than others. Their eyes are everywhere: on the fine architecture, the uneven pavement, shop windows, the map in their hands, unfamiliar traffic patterns, unpronounceable street signs. They don’t know the customs of the locals and don’t recognize the local troublemakers.
“Con artists and thieves are drawn to tourists for the same reasons. Tourists are unsuspecting and vulnerable.”
Lord and Lady Ball (yes, their real names), enjoyed a week in warm Palma de Mallorca, an annual retreat from the dreary London weather. They nimbly dodged the numerous pickpockets, flower sellers, and con artist that live in this paradise, supported by tourist dollars, pounds, euros, yen, etc. But their visit began with a fiasco.
On arrival at the Palma airport, they collected their luggage and piled it onto a cart. Then they pushed the cart out to their assigned rental car in the crowded lot. The way the cars were parked, they couldn’t get the cart close to the trunk of the car. So they left it in front of the car while they opened the doors and the trunk lid. When they turned back to the cart, it was gone. The whole thing was just gone.
Yes, I know. It sounds doubtful. You’d think they’d hear something, or at least see it being pushed off in the distance. But no.
Lady Ball gave a little shout and who should be nearby but a nice, friendly policeman! Just when you need him, right? Strangely, he didn’t have much of a reaction, but he directed the Balls to an airport police desk where they should report the stolen luggage.
So they did. And upon returning to their car, there was their stuff, next to a trash can in the parking lot. Everything of value was gone from inside. The Balls were left with a distinct feeling of fishiness.
They never discovered anything more about the incident. Neither did we.
Beach creature.
Palma de Mallorca has long been a favorite holiday destination for Germans, Brits, and Swedes, and for Europeans in general. Many British retire to Mallorca, or have second homes there. Ferries bring daytrippers from mainland Spain, and cruise ships regularly dump sightseers by the thousands to bask in this balmy Spanish paradise. Its beaches and nightclubs are a perennial draw, and have been long before the spotlight hit Ibiza.
Low-lying criminals, too, are attracted to Palma’s easy-going lifestyle and laid-back law enforcement.
Bob and I have spent many a blistering summer day chasing thieves in Palma, a well-stocked laboratory for our research. We’ve been threatened there, and physically assaulted by thieves. Stories of these to come in future posts.
So I wondered: did Mallorca’s prevalent pickpockets plague every tourist attraction? Even underground? With that weak theory to prove, I had excuse enough to join the daytrippers on a journey to the Cuevas del Drach, or Caves of the Dragon, at Mallorca’s eastern coast. Well? If thieves can be nocturnal, why not subterranean? Leaving Bob on downtown surveillance, I set off by coach across the desolate landscape beyond the city of Palma.
Cuevas del Drach, Caves of the Dragon, in Mallorca.
The caves contain the largest underground lake in Europe, a superlative that failed to inspire my need-to-see instinct. So I paid for my ticket with minor lethargy and ambled off in the direction vaguely indicated, drawn to the cool, the dark, and the quiet.
A rough path descended gently into a forest of unfamiliar forms. Organic shapes and amoebic ponds in utter darkness were exquisitely lit to dramatic effect by an absolute (probably Italian) master. Disney couldn’t have done as well, and certainly couldn’t have created something so unreal, so otherworldly.
I got quite wet during the twenty-minute stroll into the depths. The surroundings first seemed inspired by Antoni Gaudi—or perhaps vice versa. Around me rose huge, undulating floor to ceiling columns in complicated bundles. Vast expanses of icicles by the millions pointed to curvaceous, humanoid formations below. I felt as if I were inside a giant pin cushion of some undefined shape. Or in the mouth of some great beast chewing taffy. Now, instead of Gaudi, I felt the influence of Dr. Suess. Among looming trunk-like forms the ceiling dripped and spattered and ploinked into puddles and pools. Stalactites and stalagmites were forming as I watched.
The uneven path wound down and around, along crystal clear ponds containing underwater figures—or were they reflections from above?—and eventually to an enormous gallery surrounded on three sides by a lake of such stillness and clarity it could have been air. A number of visitors had already gathered on the peninsula, settling onto wet benches facing Lago Martel and the thick and thin columns growing out of it.
Lights went out one by one and the crowd became silent. We were allowed a few moments to savor the cool void, the faintly clammy air, the crisp smell of absolutely fresh water, the surround-sound of erratic drips, and the unfortunate absence of bats.
Then, far, far in the distance, a violin. Chopin. The music grew, as did a faint glow from the depths of the cave. Finally, still distant, a curved row of fairy lights appeared, doubled by its reflection. It was a small boat encircled by a string of white lights, gliding smoothly as if on a rail. Another Disney effect. The boat carried a small orchestra and a single rower who dipped and pulled his oar like a slow metronome. Chopin became Offenbach as the boat drew near; the music swelled then filled and overflowed what had been a void, an unnoticed nothingness. Ghostly and surreal, the boat slid past us to hover in a small grotto, its single string of bulbs still the only illumination.
The concert ended as it had begun, with the simultaneous dwindling of music and light as the vessel and its orchestra sailed slowly, serenely, out of sight. As the last note sounded, a thunderous applause exploded in the darkness.
Gradually, stalagmites were randomly lit and the audience came out of its collective trance.
“Where’s my purse?” A woman’s panicked voice echoed nearby. I snapped my head around to look for her.
“Here,” said another, lifting dripping, waterlogged leather from the cave floor. I fought an urge to lecture the woman.
A line of rowboats had magically appeared. Visitors rose reluctantly to be ferried across the lake to a path leading up and out of the cave.
I emerged damp, blinking like Gollum, and drunk on the multisensual subterranean experience. While not exactly relevant research on the underground subculture we study, the venture below had been well above my expectations, and a fine respite.
Bob Arno, the go-to guy on street scams, was on the NBC Weekend Today show on November 22.
He was on Fox & Friends on November 29. The video made Yahoo’s top ten of the day.
Both programs show some of our video of thieves-in-the-act, and both are examples of network news soundbite-style segments. They don’t want to know anything about why, just three minutes or so of your best stuff for ratings. Nothing to be proud of, really.
