tourism – Thiefhunters in Paradise

Hollywood Attractions, Distractions, and Tourist Crime

hollywood attractions distractions tourist crime

What do thiefhunters on vacation do to unwind from workdays detecting and preventing crimes against world travelers? We grab a cocktail, and hobnob with the stars! Here’s what happens when Bob Arno and I attempt to get away for a day of fun-n-frolic in Tinsel Town, with our California colleague Dave “Wiggy” Wiggins. (Hint: simply flipping off the workaday switch is not that easy.)

The costume-clad and the snake-draped, the card-trickers and drum-beaters, the picture-posers and the star-counterfeiters, all are there to grab a tourist buck or two.

While enjoying the summer season in “The Golden Orange,” Bob and I met up with our colleague Dave Wiggins for a day of sight-seeing in Hollywood. Bob was just coming off his latest star turn on a Steve Harvey show, so Hollywood is nothing new. But rarely do we have the time to be simply tourists on the legendary Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Dave Wiggins, tourism safety specialist

Our companion this day is well-known in California (and Hollywood in particular) as one of the world’s leading experts on crimes against tourists and best practices in visitor venue safety and security. Dave Wiggins is a 27-year veteran (retired) of California law enforcement, with deep expertise in preventing, investigating, and prosecuting tourism related crime. He helped develop a variety of different tourism security and service programs which came to be viewed as national role models.

For years “Wiggy” organized the nation’s largest conference on tourism safety and security matters. Today, he leads the first ever professional association dedicated to advancing the cause of better protecting travelers. As president of the California Tourism Safety & Security Association, he continues to conduct security assessments and training programs for tourism businesses, as well as security and law enforcement teams. He has been accredited by the American Hotel & Lodging Association as a Certified Lodging Security Director (CLSD), and is an expert in hospitality security as well.

As a former security director in Hollywood, Wiggy knows the streets of Tinsel Town better than most. When we meet up in front of the famed Dolby Theater (home to the Academy Awards) the order of the day is simply socializing. Strolling over sidewalk stars and cement foot prints, followed by cocktails at Hollywood & Highland.

I doesn’t take long for Plan A to devolve into a Walk of Fame version of thiefhunting.

Never the shy one, Wiggy strips off his professional clothing right in the busy parking garage. Slacks, buttoned down shirt, and Maui Jim sunglasses are quickly replaced with cheap shades, tacky shorts, and a Hollywood souvenir t-shirt. The transformation is swift and amazing. Wiggy now looks like he just stepped off the bus from Topeka.

Hollywood Walk of Fame

On Hollywood Boulevard, we’re swept up in a swirling sidewalk sea of humanity which rivals New York’s Times Square or the Las Vegas Strip. Millions of visitors every year come to see such landmarks as the Pantages Theater, Madam Tussaud’s Wax Museum, the Chinese Theater, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, the El Capitan Theater, Fredericks of Hollywood, the Magic Castle, Hollywood Bowl, Capital Records building, Jimmy Kimmel’s television studio, and the famous home of the Oscars.

But what causes these same visitors to trip over their own feet are the cement stars planted into the glimmering sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard. It was this blocks-long string of inlaid stars that became Hollywood’s first official tourist attraction.

Initiated in the 1950’s, the Walk of Fame today comprises over 2,600 inlaid stars, commemorating a variety of popular performers and entertainment industry leaders.

Wiggy offers us a bit of perspective on the Walk of Fame. “People wanted to come see Hollywood,” he explained, “but the motion picture industry was not a place. The principal studios that make up ‘Hollywood’ were scattered all around, from the Santa Monica mountains to the San Fernando Valley, throughout Hollywood and mid-city areas of Los Angeles. So, creating the Walk of Fame gave a far-flung industry a more centralized attraction for tourists.”

The irony, Bob points out, is that you’ll never see an actual celebrity anywhere along the tourist zone of Hollywood Boulevard. To get a glimpse of living stars in the flesh, you’ll need to slide down to Sunset Boulevard, and head west toward Sunset Plaza.

Sidewalk congestion, attractions, and distractions make an ideal environment for crooks

Nevertheless, a cottage industry of businesses catering solely to tourists has sprung up along the Boulevard. Most recently, a spectacular retail, dining, and entertainment complex has been developed at Hollywood & Highland. A variety of vendors and street performers block the sidewalks with their displays and shows. On a busy summer day, it can be hard to move on the sidewalks, which are even more congested than the area’s infamous freeways. Pedestrians spill into traffic lanes as they navigate the crowds and board buses for tours of the stars’ homes. Pedestrian safety has become a hot button topic.

I pause to admire the stars of Groucho Marx and Tony Curtis. But the boys’ heads spin to gawk at a pair of the street performers nearby, a duo of skin-tight black pleather-wearing Cat Women standing tall in stiletto boots. The male of the human species may be biologically compelled to have a wandering eye, but no one can claim they are especially sly about it!

The curvaceous ladies are in good company. The Boulevard is home to scores of cinematic and cartoony characters. The antics of the many street performers along Hollywood Boulevard serve to satisfy the need of tourists to see Hollywood, while obstructing the already congested sidewalk even more. And as we’re well aware, this clogged sidewalk and its many attractions and distractions make an ideal environment for crooks. Like tourism venues elsewhere, the street performers contribute to a climate of disorder which serves the purposes of opportunistic criminals.

In a flash, Wiggy has Bob posing for a souvenir photo with a lanky Cat Woman. Our R&R is off to a good start, it seems. But just as fast, their pose is suddenly photobombed by Jack Sparrow, Marilyn Monroe, Captain America, and a girl wielding two armfuls of live snakes. Uninvited, they crowd the shot. And once snapped, they all demand payment for the pic.

As Bob notes, street performers and related scams are a common problem at tourism venues around the world. From the Colosseum in Rome, to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, street performers are notorious not only for creating the conditions which facilitate crimes, but sometimes engaging in crimes themselves.

While Wiggy fends off the spurious claims and hands over two dollars to Cat Woman alone, many tourists are intimidated and end up paying all of the photographic interlopers. It goes on all day, every day, all summer, says Wiggy.

And that’s just the tip of the street disorder in this tourist mecca.

An army of career criminals at tourism destinations across the globe work tirelessly at their nefarious trades to make things even tougher for travelers.

—Dave Wiggins

When Bob turns around to continue our stroll along the Walk of Fame, his trained eye instantly catches two locals, their backs planted against a store wall, one leg cocked up, intently observing preoccupied tourists. These are career criminals who prey specifically on tourists—distraction thieves who take advantage of the built-in madness of a place like Hollywood Boulevard.

Wiggy bumps into a couple of former colleagues and soon Bob is engaged in deep conversation with the local constabulary about current trends impacting tourism. Suddenly our day of leisure is looking like another workday.

To be fair, the issues and problems in Hollywood are no worse than any major tourism destination. But as Wiggy observes, one feature makes Hollywood Boulevard distinct: “Nowhere in the world are more people more focused looking straight down.”

Bob is an expert on how just such distractions facilitate victimization, so this turns into a lively discussion on tourism crime around the globe. So much for a day of R&R.

Such is the life of a thiefhunter on vacation.

Thanks to pickpockets, Chinese now shun travel to France

Asian tourists have been scared away from Paris by the plague of pickpockets who target them. According to Jean-François Zhou, President of the Chinese Association of Travel Agencies in France, the perception of insecurity in France has turned them instead to Russia, which they perceive as safe.

Chinese tourists to Paris

Chinese tourists to Paris, Zhou said, “are robbed in the Palace of Versailles, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, in front of their hotel, descending buses … In high season, there is not a day without tourists being assaulted. I saw an 80-year-old man seriously injured because he was trying to resist thieves. Women pushed, fall and have their bag stolen with all their papers … This created a panic on Chinese social networks. The Chinese began to turn away from France since last year.”

Paris and Marseille are the French cities most avoided by Chinese, Japanese, and Korean travelers.

An article in Le Parisien states “The problem is that the police are not supported by justice. Often, these offenders are released within a few hours, or the sentence is not proportionate.”

Pickpockets in Paris; Chinese tourists to Paris. Bob Arno recognizes yesterday's pickpocket and persuades him to join us for dinner. — Bob Arno recognizes yesterday’s pickpocket and persuades him to join us for dinner.

In October of 2014, Bob and I watched the arrest and jailing of a pickpocket. We happened to find the same man the very next morning on the loose in the subway. “The police arrest them regularly then see the same faces on the streets and in the Metro a day later. Frustrated, the police soldier on,” I wrote then.

“In 2016, there were 1.6 million Chinese tourists to Paris compared to 2.2 million in 2015!” Zhou said. “The decline is 39% of Japanese and 27% of Koreans. Our tourists have turned to Russia, which is less attractive but at least it is a safe country. For Putin, it is an economic windfall.

“I have been in France for twenty-five years, and I myself have seen the decline of France in terms of security. Before, the Chinese operators deplored the insecurity in Italy, today it is France and more particularly Paris and Marseilles which we speak of. There are many regions in France where tourism can be leisurely pursued, but Paris is ranked No. 1 in Europe in terms of the increase in delinquency.”

In January of 2017 in a Paris hotel parking lot, six thieves laid in wait for a bus to arrive returning Chinese tourists from a shopping excursion. As the shoppers descended the bus laden with purchases, the thieves assaulted them and grabbed their bags. The six thieves were all in their 20s, all had been previously jailed, and all lived in the Seine-Saint-Denis district of Paris which is commonly referred to as a no-go zone. Seine-Saint-Denis is a majority Muslim, majority immigrant district.

This mass raid on Chinese shoppers’ buses had become a new pattern, storming relaxed and burdened tourists on the threshold of their hotels—an ostensibly safe and secure place.

The thieves are not too clever. Have they not heard of overfishing? They prey on their favorite target and as a result, their favorite target stops visiting.

chinese France paris pickpocket tourism

Filming pickpockets

Bob and I began our field research on street thievery in 1993, when we quit our steady jobs in Las Vegas to combine freelancing with travel. As our work took us around the world, we got into the streets, among the tourists, in cities and at historical sites, watching who was watching the visitors. Our early successes gave us an enormous charge and encouragement to continue. We were hooked on tracking. But I don’t think either one of us believed, in the beginning, that we’d succeed in identifying so many perpetrators.

Rome was our teething ground as pickpocket hunters. We began with modest ambitions. We’d hang out at the Coliseum in hopes of photographing child and teenage pickpockets, who had become easy for us to recognize. They’d always carry a section of newspaper or, better for its stiffness, a slab of corrugated cardboard, with which they’d shield their dipping hands. Although the Coliseum was sometimes crawling with Carabinieri with not a thief in sight, we soon built up a healthy portfolio of red-handed-children on film and footage.

The following year, 1994, we were decked out like pros. We lugged a video camera monster, a JVC 3GY-X2U, which is 24 inches long and weighs 25 pounds without its case. I wore a battery belt of about 30 pounds, which threatened to slip off my hips if I didn’t keep a hand on it. Bob carried the camera and a huge, heavy tripod. In addition, we needed my purse, a 35mm camera, and a bag of video accessories. Thus burdened, we traipsed around the ancient city, filming ruin after ruin, milling crowds, establishing shots, and potential danger zones (pickpocketly-speaking).

We usually began with the intention of filming the elusive urchin pickpockets who seemed always to congregate around the Coliseum, often in large family groups. But they, apparently, were polar opposites to video cameras, which repelled them in a great radius. I wondered that year if the police knew about this great tool for clearing the area of crime.

Sometimes we’d get a few minutes of unexciting footage and I’d take a few stills. Eventually, our prey would escape into the subway or onto a bus. We’d decide to go to the Spanish Steps, another popular venue for a theft-show. Then, perhaps in an alley or side street, a couple of girls carrying cardboard and babies would pass us. We’d about-face and follow stealthily, keeping downwind as if they were big game animals who might sniff us out. We’d get plenty of footage and photos before they’d notice us, then still, we’d follow. Round and around the back streets of Rome, we’d tail as they’d lead. But we’d no longer try to hide, and they wouldn’t dare try to steal.

Eventually we’d give up on the girls and go back to the exclusive shopping streets around the Spanish Steps. The area is always mobbed with tourists, and with police, too. If there was nothing happening, off we’d go to Trevi Fountain, another popular spot.
We were exhausted by the end of those days. If we hadn’t found much to raise our spirits, I’d be dragging around like nothing more than a pack animal pining for its stable. Except for quick lunches and a few standing-up coffees, that’s how we spent countless ten-hour days in Rome. True, it’s cheaper than shopping!

One day, on our way toward Trevi Fountain from the Spanish Steps, we spied a gang of suspect children. A pregnant girl of about 16 led the younger ones. Each carried a large square of cardboard, announcing their intentions. Incredibly brazen, they tried for the pockets or purses of tourists every few yards, but with little success. The children eventually noticed us and our huge, tv-news-style camera, but we continued to follow. They were confused by our interest in them. Why were we following? Why taking photos?

Finally, they came right up to us and asked. But as they spoke no English, we just waved them away. No polizia, we said. They walked on, pausing to try for pockets here and there, and every once in a while tried to duck away from us. We remained close behind. Then, just as they tried for a man’s pocket, a police car zoomed up, officers jumped out, and the kids were rounded up against a wall. The police questioned them angrily while the kids pointed accusingly at us. Bob kept filming. One officer grabbed the kids’ cardboard squares and threw them into a corner. They let the kids go, shooed them away as they were all too young to arrest, and drove off. We waited. Sure enough, the scoundrels came back for their cardboard and we all continued where we’d left off. They led, we followed and filmed. Eventually, they ditched us.

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter One (part-j): High and Dry on the Streets of Elsewhere

Bob Arno filming thieves pickpocket Rome street crime thieves tourism Travel Advisory video

Bottomfeeders of the criminal hierarchy

Luciano Barattolo, a pickpocket who works on trams and buses.

High and Dry on the Streets of Elsewhere
Chapter One, part-c, Travel Advisory

Bob and I hit the ground and I squinted at the gang.

“Luciano!” I said to one of the culprits as the tram trundled off. I recognized him as a pickpocket we’d interviewed four years ago.

“No, no Luciano,” he said, shaking his head. He backed away.

“Si, Luciano Barattolo, I remember you.” Luciano bent and fiddled with a window squeegee in a bucket of water abandoned on the median strip. He removed the dripping squeegee and touched it to the toe of each of his shoes. I got ready for a blast of filthy water; I was sure he was going to fling it at us.

Head still bent, he peeked up at me through the corner of his eye, dropped the squeegee, and bolted.

After more than a decade prowling city streets around the world, we’d become accustomed to finding known criminals freely plying their trade right out in the open. Here was Luciano, still out lifting wallets on trams despite police and public awareness of him. You’d think he’d be put away by now.

It’s a contentious political issue: law enforcement budget versus taxes, penal code versus perpetrator’s rights, unemployment, immigration. Same story in most of the world’s major cities and, therefore, street thieves abound, free to prey on the weakest, richest resource: the tourist. From a busy prosecutor’s perspective, or an overworked judge’s, or even an underpaid beat cop’s, pickpocketing is a pretty insignificant issue. Real bad guys are on the loose: murderers, kidnappers, rapists, drug-pushers. How much of a police force should be diverted to snag the bottomfeeders of the criminal hierarchy?

Most countries blame illegal immigrants from poorer nations nearby. “We can’t get rid of them,” said Inspector D’Amore Vincenzo, a frustrated policeman in Milan, Italy. “When they’re caught without work cards, we give them 15 days to leave the country. Then they are released and what happens? They just don’t leave! And if they have no papers, no passports, the countries they come from will not accept the repatriation of these people.”

The problem may seem small. One man loses his wallet, his money, his driver’s license, his credit cards. So what? But it’s not one man. In Westminster–that’s one small district of London–768 cases of pickpocketing were recorded in June 2002. That’s just June. Just one small section of the city of London. And only the reported incidents. How many victims did not file a report? And by the way, the figure doesn’t include the 142 bag snatches recorded in the same district in the same period.

Luciano paused a couple blocks away, having finally dredged up the memory of us from four years ago. He was 49 now, but still looked 30. He raised his children on a career of pickpocketing, and now was spoiling five grandchildren. Over lunch, he told us how he and his partners used legal loopholes to stay in the game.

“If the police catch us with a tool, they are angry and beat us up. If we don’t have a tool and they see us they just say …˜leave, get out of here.'”

“What’s a tool?”

“A razor blade, for example. Or some use long tweezers to slip into a back pocket.” Luciano’s eyes scanned the sidewalk cafÃ© for listening ears. “A scissors is a good tool,” he whispered. “A scissors is okay to carry. With scissors I can cut a pocket and let the wallet fall into my hand.”

Luciano makes it sound easy. He and his ilk hit on moving targets in tight spaces, then fade away into churning crowds. It’s a universal style. Police throw up their hands. “We must see the hand in the pocket!” they cry. “We have only six in our squad for all the city.” “Our officers don’t know what to look for.” “It’s impossible!”

The pickpockets aren’t about to stop.

“I started doing it to eat, to get food, because there were no jobs. Now it’s all I know,” Luciano told us. Others steal to support drug problems, or have no legal status to work, or simply believe in taking what they want.

pickpocket street crime thieves tourism Travel Advisory

PICKPOCKETS, CON ARTISTS, GANGSTERS, THIEVES, AND TRAVEL