Wolf Tickets

Man o man, just when I think I’ve seen it all, someone runs game that blows my mind. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel all around the world and I’ve witnessed an unbelievable array of scams perpetrated on the streets; no matter where you go, someone is always selling you Wolf Tickets.  From Caracas to Cairo, Angeles City to Amsterdam, the objective is always the same: to graciously part the tourist from their money.  How they go about doing this is a completely different story.

Of course we have cons in the US, but being in a Third-World country lends itself to a certain chaos, a sublime entropy, that can make these endeavors particularly desperate – and effective.  Everyone is on the take; drunks on the street, the maid in your hotel room, hookers and pimps, your taxi driver, common thugs, little kids, and even the police, and to let your guard down for one second guarantees you’ll be flying home early with slightly less luggage. 

I wanted to share with you some of the schemes that have either been run on me, or I’ve seen played out on someone else, and how I put up a defense in the heat of the moment. I’ve traveled to almost 40 countries on 6 continents, and have learned to carry myself with the diligent eye of a paranoid gringo who understands that he’s the prey and this is the jungle.  I’ve won some and lost some, but lived to write another day.

The Fake-Drunk Pickpocket: 

Pickpockets always operate with the aid of distraction, and one of the best ways to disarm a tourist’s defenses, and lift his valuables, is to play the sloppy drunk.  Picture yourself in a bar or restaurant and all of a person who is shit-faced drunk staggers over and starts falling all over you.  This person is dressed in rags and smells like shit and you’re worried they’re going to puke on you or something, so you push them away, take a couple steps back, and tell them to get lost.  The drunk stumbles out, or is removed by security, and by the time the commotion dies down and you go back to your meal or your beer you’re just grateful to have that stinking bum off of you.  In about 30 seconds your subconscious registers that something is wrong and you start a mental checklist, patting down your pockets.  The realization that you just got conned will hit you like a punch in the stomach.  Your wallet/passport/camera are missing.  How can you be so stupid?  From a choreography standpoint this scam is simple yet brilliant.  A drunk has an excuse to fall all over someone, and once that is done the tourist’s reaction is to push that person away and get them the hell out of site as soon as possible.  So basically you’re aiding them in their getaway, and feel relieved to do so!  How the hell do you counter this?  I carry my wallet in my front pocket, because it’s harder to access without feeling it than your back pocket – that’s just a sitting duck.  Whenever someone intruded on my physical space, in a non-violent way, I would put one hand on my wallet or on the pocket it was in so I could feel it, and push the person away with the other hand.  This defense applies to drunks, transvestites, and hot chicks.  Still to this day, even when I’m in America, I reach for my wallet whenever a hot chick starts walking my way!

The Razor Blade Slash:

Another form of pickpocketing is to slash a tourist’s bag, backpack, or luggage with a razor blade while someone is passing. On a crowded street with people walking both ways a subtle swipe with a sharp razor can open up a clean gash in your bag without being noticed.  It’s a two man job, so the person who does the cutting keeps walking and another person falls in line walking behind you and either reaches in to helps themselves or picks up items as they fall out.  After travelling so long in Third World Countries I’ve developed a sort of “Spidey Sense” that will tingle whenever I feel I am a target or in a situation that would make me easy prey.  So on crowded sidewalks or bad areas I switch my backpack to the front, and definitely don’t put my wallet, passport, or anything valuable in there – that’s reserved for my front pocket.  I’ve even gone so far as to safety pin my wallet or keys to the inside of my pocket – it’s a perfect quick security system.  Sometimes if I’m going into a really bad area I’ll put my money under the insole of my shoe in case of emergencies. 

Beggars: 

There are beggars everywhere on the streets of Third World cities.  The typical tourist who walks by them makes more money in a week than they do in a year or two, so it’s easy to see why they would hold out a dirty hand for alms.  At least begging is a victimless crime – or is it?  Think of the street worker as an actor, who gets dressed up and employs props to effectively convey their character.  So that crippled old man who carts himself around on a rolling wooden platform in Lima, Peru might stand up at the end of the day, brush his legs off and walk away, counting his cash.  It’s true that a lot of people are too lazy, drunk or whacked out on drugs to work, but most beggars are those who are very old, very young, or too infirm to earn money anywhere else.  Sending children out on the streets to beg is a problem of epidemic proportions in poor countries, because they know children will tug on a tourist’s heartstrings a little more.  It’s really sad that mothers and fathers are the ones who force their kids to go out on the streets and beg, sometimes all day and night.  In some countries there are economic caste systems that permanently restrict their ability to make a living.  These people will literally be poor for the rest of their lives, no matter what they do and how hard they work, as will their children and generations to come.  To best prepare their children for this lifetime struggle they sometimes injure or cripple their children themselves.  Let that sink in.  They may scar them with boiling water or acid, or break an appendage and force it to heal impossibly twisted.  That gives their children an advantage on the streets as a beggar, and thereby bolsters their chances of making money and eating every day for the rest of their lives.  These parents are literally maiming their own children AND doing it out of love and concern for their welfare.  We have it so good it’s crazy. 

I usually don’t drop coins to beggars.  That’s a personal policy I formed in the United States, because half the time when you give someone a dollar they run around the corner and buy drugs or alcohol with it, or they’re just way too lazy to work.  Fuck them.  So I decided it was way better to make philanthropic contributions to legitimate relief agencies or programs where I had a better chance of my money helping the people who really need it.  However I will throw some money to a street performer; someone who makes me laugh, demonstrates special skills, or generally entertains me.  At least this shows initiative and the exchange of entertainment for money is a two-way street.  These artisans; jugglers, painters, musicians, acrobats, or comedians, deserve their well-earned money.

In most cities the beggars congregate on the main avenues of highly traveled tourist areas.  In some international cities I’ve found the begging to be so rampant that they are thick as flies.  Cairo, Egypt was one such place.  First off, don’t go to Egypt.  I know, I know…the pyramids.  Egypt, and Cairo (Gaza) in particular, is a gigantic shit hole.  It’s one of the dirtiest, most decrepit, most dangerous places on earth.  Every picture of the pyramids shows the vast unspoiled desert as a backdrop, but if you just turned the camera in the opposite directions you’d see a huge slum of shacks, open sewage, garbage everywhere, and burnt-out cars.  The beggars are some of the worst in the world.  To be fair, hustling is in their culture, and they’ve perfected bartering to an art form.  Egyptians haggle and negotiate over everything, and when you are in Egypt it comes naturally to do the same; it’s almost an insult if you don’t.  I found myself even bartering over the price of a pack of gum, both the vendor and I yelling and cussing, waving our arms, making threats against each other’s families, mocking heart attacks, wishing curses on our unborn children, and spending half an hour making a scene on the street, only to come up with the original price that was quoted, then wishing each other God’s blessing in Arabic (en shalla), hugging, and going our separate ways.  It’s like that all day.

Everyone wants you to tip them for everything.  “Baksheesh” is the Arabic word, which was demanded of me about one hundred times a day.  The doorman, the security guard, the hotel worker, the taxi driver, the guy who flagged down the taxi, the guy who sold you an apple for 1 cent, the kids who accompanied you while crossing the street , all wanted my money – it was ridiculous.  It got to the point where guys would ask for baksheesh for no reason at all, and accost me on the street in such numbers, and not get out of my way so I couldn’t walk in a straight line unmolested.  One guy in particular was such a pain in the ass and kept throwing himself in my way.  So I just grabbed him by the shoulders, picked him up, moved him to the side, and kept walking.  I had to do that with four guys before I had a clear path and could walk on and go about my day in semi-peace.     

The Inside Job theft:  

If your hotel room, apartment, or car gets robbed there’s a very good chance that it was an inside job.  Think about how many security guards (who might make $5 a day if they are lucky), maids (who work their asses off and make about the same), or maintenance workers are running around, eyeing you and your stuff, taking note of your comings and goings – and when your habitation is vacant.  It’s quite a paradox, even for those living in Third World countries, because you can be rich as hell and hire ten security guards and think you’re safe, but you really just employed ten potential kidnappers or thieves who would just as well murder you and stuff you in the trunk and steal all your stuff as work during the long weekend.  That’s why having a couple of loyal dogs is still, despite all of our technology, the best security at your home.

I’ve been to so many hotels, hostels, and apartments abroad I can’t even recount, but none of them are safe for your possessions.  In fact just last week in Costa Rica at my apartment complex a Gringo tourist came home and the security guard was casually walking down the stairs in his place, after rifling through his daughter’s luggage.  Busted!  The commotion that ensued was enough to wake the dead, and eventually the guard was arrested and thrown in jail.  They got a replacement security guard and not-so-coincidentally a Canadian’s Landrover was robbed the very next night, by someone who was watching and knew exactly what to take.  So what’s the best way to combat the “Inside Job” hustle?  I would always bribe the security guard.  First of all be cool with them so its not bullshit.  A lot of tourists don’t take the time or effort to recognize and be friendly with the “little” people, and to me that snobbery warrants larceny.  So saying wassup and making a security guard feel the love goes a long way, as does brining him a cold beer at the end of the night, or handing him your leftover pizza, or breaking him off a T-shirt or CD or something you don’t really need.  That same security guard who got arrested – who left my place alone and even lent me his umbrella – got a cold beer from me every night if I was headed back from dinner or a bar.  The strategic defense against maids goes a little deeper.  No matter where I travelled, whenever I left my room, I’d turn the TV on pretty loud and leave the lights on – which we called the “Ghetto Security System.”  The things the maid would want to steal are your camera, your laptop, jewelry (so don’t bring any – I wear a shit little plastic watch abroad), cash sitting around (don’t leave it around), and maybe your passport.  I always make a photocopy of my passport and carry it with me, then find unique hiding places within my accommodation.  If there is a safe that is one option, but my guess is that everyone and their mother has the combination.  Other hiding spots for my valuable possessions include under my mattress, in a bag of dirty laundry that no one would want to go through, behind the bathroom mirror, in the oven or microwave, under a piece of furniture, or even in a light fixture that can be easily unscrewed. 

Deaf kids: 

Have you ever been sitting outside at a café, or on a train, and someone comes up to you and hands you a card?  This is a common hustle, especially in Third World cities, where they know they tourists have money to burn and their “white guilt” will kick in whenever witness poverty or infirmity.  So the person hands over a card saying they are deaf and they need a donation to go to school or something.  Another form of this hustle is to have a picture of a sick child and claim to be collecting money for their care or a necessary operation.  They even have official paperwork and a signup sheet.  The sad thing is that there’s about a 90% chance it’s all bullshit and these people are just good actors.  Walk by them later in the day and you’ll see them cursing and making fun of how stupid tourists are and smoking cigarettes…bought with your money.

The Rio Crap on the Shoe Scam: 

Rio de Janiero is a dangerous place, but it’s also one of the most dynamic, wildest, beautiful places on earth.  Some common sense is necessary when travelling as a tourist in Brazil’s famous city, and don’t even dare walk out of the good areas or anywhere near the favelas – you’ll end up walking home naked if you’re lucky, if you’re not stabbed twenty times within 5 minutes.  In Copacabana, the tourist neighborhood right on the beach, there are plenty of hustlers who pick off easy targets – the fat, rich, naïve Americans and Europeans.  I was ready and very diligent looking for trouble, but one scam in particular was interesting in that it was not technically illegal, yet rife with deception.  I’ve seen it a couple of times, with different outcomes.  So you’re walking down the street, just minding your own business and enjoying being in Brazil’s jewel city, when a hot chick – and I mean H-O-T – curves that would make a grown man cry – walks on by you in the other direction.  She catches your eye and smiles, and you can’t help but turn around and look at the thong on the way by.  Congrats, you’ve officially been distracted – see how easy it is?     When you turn back around some little Brazilian guy, probably a teenager, is in front of you with a wooden shoeshine box.  He remarks in rapid-fire English how the girl is so hot, and then asks if you want a shoeshine.  Before you can even get your bearings and say “no,” he’s already on his hands and knees and has the wooden box set up right in front of where you’re standing.  Of course you protest, because after all you’re wearing sneakers and why the hell would you want a shoeshine…but when you look down you see a big blob of dog shit on your shoe.  Gross!  How the hell did that get there?  You’re confused for a second, and that gives the guy just enough time to pick your shoe up and put it on his case and start cleaning before you can even say “no” again.  He quickly wipes off the crap with a rag and then proceeds to take out some cleaners that he sprays on and shines your sneaks for a couple minutes.  You’re not too comfortable with it but he got the crap off and he’s almost done by this time.  He finishes the shoeshine show with a snap of his rags and then stands up and demands to be paid.  You inquire how much it is, thinking maybe he’ll get ballsy and ask for $1 USD, but he informs you very seriously that it’s $40.  What the fuck?  When he starts to protest he turns his wooden box around, and sure enough there is a sign that says $40 for a shoeshine.  You’re pissed, but just want to get him out of your face, so you throw him $10 or $20 or whatever you have and get out of there.  Think about it – you got hustled but he didn’t do anything illegal.  He made $20 cash in three minutes. 

So how does it work?  It’s a three-person operation – one of them being…you guessed it, the hot chick in the thong.  The second guy is walking a few feet behind you and to the side, out of sight.  When he sees you turn to look at the girl he walks by and flings a substance at your show with a little slingshot.  His accuracy is amazing from years of practice.  The dog shit was actually a brown gel – I’m not sure what they use but from eye level it looks pretty real.  Then the shoeshine guy is on you and starts cleaning them before you can even open your mouth to say no.  He performed a service that you voluntarily accepted, and if you argue the price he has it right there in writing.  If you tell him to fuck off and try to walk away he takes a knife out of his shoeshine box and shows it to you – he means business.  He won’t stab you then but he’ll sure remember who you are and him and his boys will sneak up on you after dark when you’re walking on the street or catch you alone on the beach.  It’s better just to pay him and get him out of there.

This was done on me once, and then they tried it on a friend of mine years later.  This time I was ready, and when the shoeshine guy started in we pushed him away and yelled at him.  It got pretty heated, and everyone in a public bus was sitting there watching the show, understanding that we were some of the only gringos that figured it out and called them on their bullshit.  We told him to fuck off and kicked him away and he scampered off after cursing us up and down.  Later on we did see him and a group of his boys on the other side of the street, yelling and threatening us.  We just kept walking and he knew it was best to ignore us and go hustle an easier target. 

Gypsies: 

If you’ve never seen a Gypsy then consider yourself lucky, because they’re the most conniving, hustling people on earth, a lost tribe of migrant thieves and shucksters with no home, no nationality, no official identity, and definitely no jobs.  But DAMN they are good at scamming people!  I would love to spend a year with a gypsy troupe, traveling around and documenting their various ploys, except if I survived it I’d end up missing my computer, my notebook, my pen, and my sneakers.  All over Europe you see Gypsies in the shadows of your periphery – features as dark and threatening as desert explorers and wearing dirty oversized rags.  If a Gypsy ever comes within twenty feet of you, run!  They especially love train stations, bus stations, and markets; anyplace there is a throng of people and enough commotion for them to operate in stealth and hit and run.  They are as fast as greased lightning and have spent a lifetime perfecting the timing and mechanics of their trade. 

They work in packs, creating chaos and then swopping in from all angles to strip you of your possessions before you know what’s happened.  Luckily I’ve witnessed Gypsies in action without getting pilfered myself.  My absolute favorite scam of theirs is the “Throw the Baby” trick.  I was in a busy train station in Italy and saw a pack of these dark-featured, dirt-covered Gypsies walking around in a group of six or so.  They couldn’t have been more than young teenagers themselves, but one, a girl with pretty features, carried a baby.  The baby was hidden from view, wrapped in rags and cradled in her arms.  Every once and a while she talked to it, touched her nose, or rocked her back and forth.  The girl casually walked up to a gentleman tourist with a nice camera around his neck and…threw the baby right at him!  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  The girl just tossed her baby – rags and all – right up in the air at the guy’s face.  Of course the tourist was in shock, and his natural reaction was to open his arms to catch the poor babe.  He didn’t catch it cleanly, and to my horror it fell to the ground and landed hard on the concrete floor.  When he did that the other gypsy children swooped in and cut his camera strap and lifted that while another boosted his wallet.  There was mass confusion as the gypsies circled him with their hands all over him, but it took him a second to collect his wits and push them away and started yelling.  The gypsies ran off in unison, disappearing into the crowd outside, choreographed with amazing accuracy.  The tourist was stunned, as were all of us around him, that these kids had just thrown a baby in the air and it hit the floor with a thud.  A lady went over to check the baby and see if it was Ok, but when she opened up the rags she discovered…a baby-sized piece of firewood wrapped in a blanket. 

I’ve seen them run the same gambit with a newspaper that’s rattled in someone’s face, or when one asks you for the time and the rest come up behind you.  One time in Florence, Italy I was heading down the street to grab a taxi to the airport, along with my travel partner’s, my buddy and his mom.  The street wasn’t too crowded or in a bad area at all.  They had to dip into a shop to ask for directions so that left me on the street to watch over our three suitcases.  The instant they went into the shop a pack of gypsies materialized about ten yards from me and started walking right at me with a definite purpose.  I jumped up to attention, took a quick glance behind me to make sure that there were none sneaking up, and stepped in front of my bags with my fists up, ready to start swinging at anyone that approached.  They got the picture real quick – they might get my bags but it would be a hell of a fight and I would take out a few of them in the process – so they turned around and walked off to find easier targets.   

The Fake Ticket Gambit: 

This is popular on trains and buses, and I got taken by this scam when I was taking a rail car from Cairo down to Aswan near the Sudanese border in Egypt.  It’s really simple – they just sell you a ticket at the station, but when you get on the train and find your seat you realize that someone else is sitting there.  You both take out your tickets and cross-reference the seat numbers and yup, they sold you duplicate tickets.  There’s no way to figure out which one is real and which one is fake, and by this time the train has either left the station or it’s way too long of a run back to the ticket counter to waiting in line, and you’d both have to be present to make your argument, even if they cared.  The conductor could give a shit.  When this happened to me on that train ride I was sitting in a seat and an American college kid walked up to me, looking confused, and told me I was in his seat. We checked and we both were sold the same ticket.  Luckily there was a seat free so we both got to sit during the 4-hour train-ride, and we got to chat.  Amazingly enough he was a freshman at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, my hometown and where my mom works!  Small fucking world.  Cameron and I became friends and traveled all over Egypt together, taking a felucca – a small open deck sail boat – back up the Nile from Aswan to Luxor.  He kept in touch back in New Haven and my mom made him a home cooked dinner a few times.  

The Double Credit Card Receipt Hoax:  

When I was travelling I around the world I used my debit card all the time.  One night in Rio De Janiero, Brazil I was in a strip club and used it to pay for a couple of rounds of drinks for me and my buddy; and no, there weren’t a hundred separate one-dollar charges.  The credit card slip came, I signed it, they took it back, I took the receipt, and I thought nothing more of it.  From Rio we jumped a series of planes that found us in the Philippines a week later.  This was before the advent of easy online banking, so the only way you could check your balances was to get a receipt from a ATM.  That was an inexact process at best, because charges from other countries and banks often didn’t show immediately, and I had to apply the exchange rate to convert my balances from the local currency.  So the Real might be 345 to 1 American dollar in Rio but the Philipino Peso might be 2,000 to 1.  You could see how these mental gymnastics would make it hard to track exactly how much money I had at any given time.  So it took me a while to figure out that my bank account had been raided.  I was horrified to see that my account went from about $7,000 to $500 in the course of a week.  The next four days were spent on international calls to my bank back in the US to file a complaint and figure out what happened.  They came back after an investigation with some interesting evidence – there was a $6,500 charge that were made on my debit card to an Italian furniture company and a receipt with my signature on it.  I explained to them that I was pretty damn sure I hadn’t bought 6k worth of Italian furniture in the last week, not even been in Italy – I might have remembered that.  To their credit – I think it was Chase bank, they returned every single dollar of my money.  It was determined that someone ran my card twice and then doubled up the receipt when I was signing so my imprint came through clearly.  Thank God my bank reimbursed the charges because that would have cut my travels short by about six months.

Beware of taxi drivers:

Taxi drivers can be pretty shady no matter where you go.  To be fair, 99.9% of the time I’ve had good drivers, but there are some really scandalous one who perpetrates their crimes at will on their patrons.  They may drive you somewhere and then quote a ridiculous price, and the implication is that you’re out in the middle of nowhere and in danger of bodily harm if you don’t pay.  They may drive you off to a secluded place and rob you and leave you at the side of the road, or they may put all of your luggage in the back of the taxi then leave it unlocked so their partner can sneak up at a red light or before you pull off and take some stuff out.  In Third World countries taxi drivers cannot live on the wages form their day jobs alone, so they all can get you weed, coke, or a chick for the right price. They are also “touts”, who get paid kickbacks from clubs, casinos, restaurants, massage parlors, brothels, etc. to suggest their place and deliver a customer door to door.  It’s best to use the official taxis where they are registered and licensed (there are a lot of gypsy cabs or guerilla cabs which are just guys who drive people around in their own cars and undercut the legit taxi’s pricing).  Whenever I jumped into a cab I befriend the driver by asking them their name, where they lived about their family, and joked around with them so there’s a comfort level, and they feel the interest and respect. 

I will say that a taxi driver saved my life once, in the barrios of Caracas, Venezuela, when a gang of neighborhood thieves accosted us on motorcycles.  This old man who was driving us took off right through a red light to lose the motorcycles, but they caught up and a high speed chase ensued, the whole time these thugs trying to reach into the taxi to grab our shit or stab us or something.  Once we got away and pulled to the side of the road to catch our breath he explained that they were the drug gangs that ruled that poor barrio with brutal violence, extortion, and robbery.  He turned around and showed us a big nasty scar on his sunken cheek.  It was from a similar robbery where some punks shot him at near point blank range, and the bullet luckily went into his mouth and out the side of his cheek so he lived.  So I guess I am 1-1 with taxi drivers, but that one was greatly appreciated.
 

Don’t ever use a money exchange guy on the street. 

I don’t know where the scam is here but I have enough intuition to know that it’s better to walk into a bank so you don’t get duped. 

The “Order Up” Sting: 

This is a scam that preys on the confusion of cultural and language differences.  A tourist, usually a man who is alone, will be walking down the street when a very cute lady bumps into him.  She apologizes and they engage in a casual conversation, because conveniently she speaks a little bit of English.  She’s super cute and seems interested so the tourist thinks it’s his lucky day!  She might say she’s headed to work at a local disco but that he should come with her to hang out, or that they should go get a drink or something to eat at a nearby café.  It goes down a little bit differently in a restaurant or a café versus a night club, but either way by now this guy is envisioning a night of passion with the hottest girl he’s every been with, so he eagerly accepts.  She leads him to the disco, or the café or restaurant or whatever, and greets the maître de and gets them a nice seat.  He’s pretty psyched that she’s a local and knows the language, and in fact she’s nice enough to do the ordering for them.  The wine comes and then some food and then maybe a few beers or some shots of liqueur.  He wants them to proceed to the next part of the evening back at his place, but she keeps him there maybe for one more drink or bottle of wine.  Finally he insists they take off and they call for the bill.  The bill comes and it’s something ridiculous like $400.  Whoaaaa!  How did that happen?!   The prices for one of the bottles of wine, or even the VIP booth they are sitting in, aren’t on the menu.  There’s really not much he can say, and his little vixen is all of a sudden not a lot of help, even though she pretends to argue vehemently with the waiter.  The management comes, as does a beefy security guard, and it’s apparent that the tourist needs to pay the tab or he’s in for a world of hurt or the police are coming.  This scam works great because the tourist’s desires lead him into the situation where he’s throwing caution in the wind and thinking with the wrong head, but technically no laws were broken.  The girl was hired by the restaurant or the club by the way, and disappears once they hit the street, or tells him she has to be somewhere but they’ll definitely meet later for some fun (and doesn’t show up).

Yes, something like this happened to me.  It was in China, where I was far from home in wintery Beijing.  I was just walking down the street when I met a really cute local gal who was going to a nice dance club to work.  She spoke a little English, which was rare, and wanted me to come in and hang out with her and her friends.  Sure thing, why the hell not?  So we went into this dark club with a labyrinth of hallways and music blaring and the maître de was nice enough to seat us in a private VIP room with leather circular couches.  It was a really nice set up and they brought out Chinese beers, shots of a liqueur, and a huge platter of sliced up fruit and meats and cheeses.  Once the platter came in I knew I was being hustled.  I asked several times but still no one would bring me a menu with prices on it.  I smelled a rat, but played it cool.  The waiter and the maître de were hovering, and the chick kept ordering more stuff.  When one of them was coming in the door I glimpsed outside in the hallway that there were some huge beefy crazy looking dudes in shirts and ties standing around.  Oh shit, this was a Chinese mob operation, and about 10 guys and 5 walls were between me and freedom.  Who knew how much the bill would come to?  A thousand dollars?  Of course I didn’t have that money but I have a feeling they would happily take my credit card or even accompany me to the ATM machine.  I played stupid (which I am surprisingly good at) and pretended to get real loose and buzzed.  I asked where the bathroom was and got up to hit the head, leaving my fleece jacket on the couch with the girl.  They didn’t think much of it because I left my jacket and seemed very eager to come back and drink more and socialize with the girl, so the waiter opened the door and pointed to a bathroom down the hall, deeper in the club.  I slapped him on the shoulder thanks and pretended to get the directions wrong and stumbled down the hall towards the front door, pointing to a side closet asking if that was the bathroom, like I made an honest mistake.  The waiter and the maître de immediately looked concerned and raised their voices to try and usher me back in the right direction, but by then I had a step on them.  I dropped my beer bottle and walked fast for the front door.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the goons come to life and start walking quickly after me, but once I hit the front door I sprinted down the street and never looked back. 

Flip-flop stealing: 

What is the lowest form of thief, a degenerate so abjectly soulless that there’s a special place in Hades reserved for him for all eternity?  A guy who steals flip-flops off the beach.  The tourists may leave them up on the sand while they are swimming and the general code of Third World ethics dictates that they should be safe if they are just normal flip flops.  But every now and again a crack head or a punk will walk up and grab them.  Even the coke dealers complain about the flip-flop thieves because they give his people a bad name.  This just happened to me down here in Costa Rica, and honestly I think I’d rather get jumped and robbed and knifepoint than have my flip-flops stolen.  It’s like someone breaking your car window so they can take 4 pennies out of the ashtray.  I’m friendly with a really cool local guy who used to be strung out on crack, but is recovered and doing well now. I told him that I got my flip flops stolen and he laughed and said that when he was a cracker he used to walk down the beach and when he saw a really nice pair of flip flops he would casually stand next to them, take off his, put on theirs, and walk away.  

The “I lost my passport” con. 

If a distressed family or old lady comes up to you, dressed very respectfully and speaking good English, and claims that they were robbed and lost their passports and need a few bucks for a hotel and a call to the Embassy, tell them to fuck off. 

Don’t be the Ugly American: 

This isn’t a scam but a warning.  Don’t get too drunk – you’ll look like a buffoon and be a very easy target.  Before you leave the bar put all of your jewelry and your watch in your front pocket, or even better don’t wear any.  Put your wallet in your sock or in your front pocket too.  Don’t take open drinks from someone because it’s way too easy to get a roofie in there.  Don’t pull out a wad of cash – ever!  Have some small bills split up in different places on your person, and the real money under your insole of your show.  And basically just don’t be a disrespectful asshole when you’re in another country – be conscious of who you are and where you are at all times.  Make local friends.  Keep your cool.  Show respect and you’ll get respect.  Let them know that you’re watching them watching you. 

The Shifting Wall Trick: 

This ploy can be run anywhere that a tourist is getting comfortable and his possessions are nearby but not on his person.  Usually it will happen in a spa, massage parlor, strip club, or something like that.  Very simply the guy and his girl bring the party into a private room, where the clothes, wallet, passport, watch, etc. are taken off and placed neatly nearby.  At some point a secret panel in the wall shifts open silently and someone reaches in and steals those valuables.  It can be run in numerous ways – I’ve even seen false openings under bleachers or seats where tourists place their belongings on the ground.   If you are lucky they just take your stuff, because I’ve heard of a tourist, who thinks he’s in a safe, locked room, looking up from his massage and there are a couple guys standing there who rough him up before robbing him.

The Policia Drug Bust Racket: 

Of all the places I’ve been, of all the trouble I’ve gotten into, this was by far the most elaborate and intelligent hustle.  It was high theater, and I fell for it: hook, line, and sinker.  I was travelling with a buddy through Ecuador and we made our way out to an isolated island in the middle of huge Lake Titicaca (on a side note you should really check it out – it’s over 100 times bigger and at twice the altitude as Lake Tahoe and stunningly beautiful).  We took a bus back into Quito, the main city, and got arrived dirty and tired, but happy we took the trip.  We walked out onto the parking lot with our bags and flagged down a cab.  We threw our bags in the trunk but kept our backpacks with us because they contained our money, passports, and cameras, then jumped in the back seat.  The taxi driver pulled off slowly through the busy parking lot.  He was really friendly and asked about our trip and how we liked his country.  Before we got out onto the street he stopped for another tourist and talked to him for a second.  Apparently the guy was a tourist from Chile, a young clean-cut man in his 20’s who was an architecture student on break, and heading in the same direction as out hotel. The fare to downtown was a good ways off, so the driver asked if it was cool with us if this guy jumped in and split the taxi fare with us.  He looked like a cool guy, and we were always conscious of saving a buck, so we said yes.  He jumped in the front seat and thanked us, and we made small talk about where to go and what to do in Quito.  We drove down the main street that led away from the bus station and it seemed all good, but a couple of blocks up there was a police car on the side of the road and two police officers flagged us down.  The taxi driver complied and pulled over and put it in park.  He seemed nervous and scared of the cops.  They came over showed us their badges and identification and started talking to the cab driver, then telling us in broken English that they were Drug Enforcement officers and looking for drugs that were being trafficked through the bus station.  The police officers told everyone to put their hands on the seats in front of them or the dashboard and not move.  I was instantly nervous because I’ve heard horror stories about corrupt cops in Third World countries, but of course we had nothing on us so I was pretty sure it would get cleared up.  They asked everyone in the taxi if they could voluntarily search our backpacks.  Me and my buddy and the tourist in the front seat handed over our bags and they carefully went through everything.  Then it happened- they found a huge bundle of drugs in the bag of the guy in the front seat. Fuck!  It was a package wrapped in plastic and duct tape around the center so it was hard to see what was inside, but I presumed coke because it had a white tint, and there was a lot of it.  The demeanor of the cops changed and they yelled for us to keep our hands up.  They searched everything else and started questioning the Chilean traveller.  After a minute long conversation they pulled him out of the car, cuffed him, and threw him in the backseat of their police car.  Once officer sat in his place in the front seat and started questioning us.  He asked us why we were involved with trafficking drugs in Ecuador and who our friend was.  Of course we made it very clear that we had just met the guy and had nothing to do with any of it, but the cop seemed skeptical.  He said if he arrested us we would be in a dangerous city jail in Ecuador and with that much drugs could get 20 years in prison.  My adrenaline was pumping and I began to feel panicked as I envisioned what would happen to a white gringo in a sketchy Ecuadorian prison.  We pleaded with the guy that we had nothing to do with it, and the taxi driver vouched for us too.  The police officers didn’t seem like they were going for it, and it felt like a crapshoot if we would end up locked up in a hellish Third-World prison that night.  But the cops eventually gave in and said that they would let us go with a warning, but they had to take the taxi driver in for questioning and impound his car.  The taxi driver looked despondent and saddened and apologized to us.  The officer opened up our backpacks and showed us as he returned our things – our wallets, cameras, passports, a notebook, a guidebook, and sweatshirts, back in our bags.  Then he zipped them up and handed them back to us.  He told us we were free to go, which was the sweetest sound I’d heard in a long time.  We got out, grabbed our backpacks and luggage from the trunk, and walked away without looking back.  One officer stayed in the taxi and drove off, followed by the police car with the prisoner in the back seat.  We were so relieved, and walked as quickly as possible in the opposite direction and grabbed the first cab we saw.

Once we were a safe distance away and realized it was going to be all right, our adrenaline subsiding, my “Spidey Sense” started going off.  Check your bag, I told my friend.  We both rifled through our backpacks and yelled out “Fuck!” in unison.  We’d be robbed.  Our wallets with all of our money and cameras were missing, as well as a nice Walkman from my friend’s bag.  We were completely dejected that we’d fallen victim to a fast one like that.  The taxi driver was in on the take and had targeted us, the tourist who was a drug trafficker was fake, and they were fake cops.  It was all a carefully choreographed production, and somehow the cop dropped our items in the front seat when he pretending to place them back in our backpacks.  We were so scared and wanted to get out of there so badly that we didn’t even question it or go through our bags on the spot – our primal instinct was just to get the hell out of there, and that worked right into their sleight-of-hand ploy.  By the time we got back to the hotel and managed to explain what happened and placed calls to our US banks to put a hold on our cards, they had already racked up a bunch of charges.  The real police came and confirmed that it was all a bullshit hustle.  They took us to the real police station and to file a report and look through about hundred pages of mug shots.  We recognized one of the guys who played the main police officer, and the police said that he was a really bad dude that was wanted for murder, as well as other similar thefts. More than any others I felt completely mentally violated by this one, and had to go through a bottle of Jack that night just to feel right with the world again.  Game recognize game, I guess.