She was short, petite, smooth androgynous features and large brown eyes right out of a Margaret Keane painting. I had seen the type before, the nubile street gamine batting eyes, promising favors. And here she was, this big-city cliché, square in my path and standing inches from my face as I ascended from the Tower Hill tube station in London.
It was December, Christmas four days out, and I was on my fourth international trip with Laurin. She had been to London before, knew the place pretty well. As such, she was out of the station and onto the street, walking a few paces ahead of me as is her practice. I, ever the good soldier, had managed to stay close and cover her six, but the space between our bodies always made us an easy couple to separate.
Hence the street gamine, pale, lovely, hypnotic eyes, blocking my path with her face close enough to kiss. I don’t remember how she dressed or if she even wore a coat in the brisk winter air. I only remember her eyes, the kind of eyes that could “hijack your breath,” to quote ‘90’s alt-rock band Toy Matinee. The eyes knocked me sideways. They would knock any man sideways. This was the reason she was chosen for the task.
“Good day, sir,” she said in that musical London Town accent. “Would y’ donate a spare pound or two to—”
I never heard the name of the charity. I can’t even confirm that it exists. The charity is not the point. The girl is the point. Delicate young thing, she was, with eyes out of a romance novel. Eyes meant to hypnotize and distract while her cutpurse boyfriend slipped up behind me, or brushed against me, or knocked the girl into me, and somehow, the two of them would casually relieve me of my wallet.
That’s why she picked me, you see. I was a man, seemingly alone because my wife walked so far ahead of me, Maybe I looked desperate in my London Fog coat and frizzy artist’s ponytail. Whatever the case, I seemed the easy mark. Perhaps I would have been had it not been for a couple of things:
1.) I don’t carry a wallet in my pocket when traveling internationally, and 2.) my wife has quick reflexes.
Before the girl could finish her spiel, Laurin’s hand was on my arm, gripping hard, tugging even harder, dragging me down the street. Just like that, disaster averted. I was lucky this time. Other times, I would not be so lucky.
I’ve spoken to people who are uneasy about international travel because of pickpockets like this. And while thieves can be a problem, they are no more or less prevalent overseas than they are right here in the United States. In fact, you have just as much chance of having your wallet lifted in New York City as you do in Paris, so crime really isn’t upgraded overseas. What is upgraded is the stress and inconvenience when it happens to you. Trust me, I’ve been there.
Nonetheless, if you’re aware of standard tricks of thieves, you can often get ahead of the game, and a few behavioral course corrections on your part can make you as safe on the road as you would be in your own back yard. As stated, I speak from experience. So let me share with you three more tactics that international thieves have thrown at me—one that was wide and outside, one that was a swing and near-miss… and one that was a direct hit:
Wide and Outside
A few years after London, and Laurin and I were in Paris, walking along the Champs-Élysées, when a young woman appeared, walking beside me.
“Pardon, monsieur,” she said. “You have dropped your ring.”
I glanced over at her. First mistake. She now had a modicum of my attention, which is just what she needed to make her move. I don’t recall her face with any great detail, not the way I recall the girl in London. I only remember the ring in her hand, shiny, silver, what looked like a rare gem imbedded in an quality setting. Probably a cheap knock-off of some sort, but who can tell without the benefit of a gemologist’s eye?
“That’s not my ring,” I began to say. And by began, I mean “That’s—” is about as far as I got.
“Tu arrêtes!” a woman’s bellowed behind me. No, not Laurin; she never walks behind me. It was one of the locals. I turned, and the young girl turned with me. She sprinted away down the street, back to whatever hold she had crawled out of.
Just then, a tall woman with silver-tinted hair moved into my line of vision.
“Tue arrêtes! Sors d’ici!” she shouted after the girl.
She turned to Laurin and me.
“Do not talk to them,” she said. “This is their game. They show you a jewelry and say you have dropped it. You say it is not yours, and they try to get money from you. Either they get you to pay for the ring… or they try to steal from you.”
It was fortunate the Parisian woman was there, but even if she had not been, Laurin was well-versed on this particular shell game. She had read up the tricks of thieves and was ready for the young girl’s pitch.
But this time, a local had beaten her to the punch.
The Swing and Miss
I should have known better, especially after what had happened in Austria. But back in those days, I tended to be a wide-eyed innocent, the product of small-town upbringing surrounded by decent folk. I naturally wanted to trust people, wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Which is why I still feel the fool to this day for what happened at Sacré-Coeur.
It was the same Paris trip, 2014, but two days prior to the encounter with the girl who had “found” the ring. Laurin and I were at Sacré-Coeur, the Roman basilica atop Montmartre, having taken the funicular to the top of the steps. Now, we were on our way down, pausing every so often to turn and get a fresh photo of the cathedral from different angles.
We were almost to the bottom, strolling around a set of curved stairs that framed an old wooden carousel like parenthesis, when a dark-skinned man approached me. His eyes were bright, his smile wide and full of good cheer. When he spoke, his accent was stilted and funny. I needed no confirmation that he was not from around these parts, but he gave it to me anyway.
“Greetings, my friend!” he cried. “I am Abeo from Nigeria. I want to give you gift.”
For some reason, they always targeted me. Laurin, as per usual, was out in front of me several paces, so it looks as if I was alone. Abeo from Nigeria stood in front of me on the steps, blocking my path.
“A gift for you, my friend,” he said. “Hold out your hand.”
I know it kills my credibility, but yes, I held out my hand. Abeo’s fingers fluttered forward with a piece of green string. He flipped the string up and around my wrist twice, then began a rapid spinning and weaving of knots that under any circumstance would have been fascinating to watch.
“What are you doing?” Laurin called from the bottom of the steps.
“He’s giving me a gift,” I said.
“I am making a Nigerian bracelet,” Abeo replied. “It will grant you one wish.”
“How much is this gift going to cost?” Laurin shouted.
“Only twenty Euro,” said Abeo.
“No!” cried Laurin. “Stop it right now!” She stormed up the stairs with a fire in her eyes I rarely see (and when I do, I leave the house for a couple of hours). “Stop it, I said! Stop it!”
It did not take much more “persuading.” Hell hath no fury, and all. Within seconds, I was free from Abeo’s grasp and moving quickly down the hill to the Metro station.
We later learned that this is an old trick of thieves, especially those imported into European cities from Nigeria. They approach you with an offer of a “gift,” get you to offer your hand, and quickly incapacitate that hand by cuffing it with string. While your hand is immobile and you are distracted by the knot-tying, one of their associates might sneak up behind you to steal your wallet.
In this case, Abeo had me pressed against the railing. I could not see what was behind me, but anyone could have been standing on the landing below, able to reach up and slip my wallet out of my pocket (if, in fact, I kept a wallet there, which I don’t; more on that in a moment). Fortunately, I had Laurin, who stepped in and broke up the scam before it was started.
By the way, I do not, in any way, mean to disparage the people from Nigeria, or any African country. Many African people who migrate to European countries are just hard-working souls looking for a better life. This bracelet scam just happened to be performed by a Nigerian, that’s all. And true to the form of a clever thief, Abeo played up his exotic origins to momentarily enthrall me. So this is not to say you should be wary of all people from Nigeria; rather, be wary of the scam itself before it starts so you can avoid it before it happens.
The Direct Hit
I mentioned Austria. Austria was a couple years before Paris, sandwiched between the street gamine in London and the thieves in the City of Lights, so yeah, I should have known better with Abeo.
Laurin and I were in Vienna, a fine hot summer day. I was carrying all of our money in a travel wallet, which hung around my neck on a string and rested under my shirt. A safe place for it, to be sure, but it looked like a big fat growth on my chest.
We were at a small plaza called Swartzenbergplatz, and Laurin wanted ice cream. There was an ice cream vendor over near one of the shops, selling colorful gelato from a kiosk. I left Laurin on a bench, and I walked over and ordered two cones. I pulled my wallet up from out of my shirt. I pulled out the money to pay.
When the vendor offered the cones, I didn’t have enough hands, so instead of putting the wallet back around my neck, I stuck it into the thigh pocket of my cargo shorts (yeah, I was in cargo shorts, the epitome of class). I took the ice cream back to Laurin at the bench, and we enjoyed it together. After, we walked over to the escalator stairs that carried us down to the underground metro.
There were a number of mistakes I made, which we figured out later, and after reporting the ensuing incident to the Vienna police, Laurin and I managed to put together a timeline.
My first mistake was carrying that bulky travel wallet. In the past, I had always kept our passports and money in a flat belt-wallet that fit against my belly under my clothes. This trip, I wanted something different. Laurin warned me against the bigger, bulkier neck/chest wallet, but as usual, I didn’t listen to her.
“I hope I don’t have to say I told you so,” she had said.
The second mistake was carrying all our money and our passports in that wallet when we left the hotel to go into the city. The hotel front desk had warned us against doing this, and there was a safe in our room where we could have kept passports and most of the cash, but… since when does a man ever listen?
The third mistake was taking the wallet out from under my shirt in a public space, pulling out the money, and then putting the wallet in my cargo shorts instead of back around my neck. I thought it would be safe in that thigh pocket if I buttoned it up (which I did). Little did I know…
According to the police, the local thieves work in teams. One of them probably saw the wallet and the money, and as such, he made me his mark. He got on his phone and texted his cohorts, then kept an eye on Laurin and me as we ate our ice cream.
When we descended down to the underground metro, the thief was no doubt on the escalator behind us, keeping his friends updated with regular texts. When Laurin and I got to the platform, he was right behind me. In fact, once I put it all together, I remember noticing the guy—short hair, handsome, black t-shirt. He was even brazen enough to smile at me.
When the train arrived, the car was packed. The doors opened, Laurin stepped on first. Three men crowded in front of me before I could follow. These were all thieves, we reasoned, part of the team. Their job was to separate me from Laurin. Once on board the train, they took positions in a cluster besides me… towards the front of the car. The man following me settled in behind me.
This is important because of what happened next.
The train doors closed. The train jolted forward. The three or four men in front fell back into me with the momentum, all of them shouting, “Whoooooaaaaa!” Keep in mind, this never happens. Most metro travelers are seasoned enough to be hanging on when the train starts forward. So their fall into me was part of the plan.
With the weight of three men on top of me, I fell back on the man who had been following me, the one in the black shirt.
We all struggled and groaned and fought to find our footing. At last, we were all back upright, standing about. The men were all laughing. Little did I know that while we were in the scrum, my wallet was lifted.
I did not realize it until we were almost to the next station. Something told me to take out my wallet and put it back under my shirt with the string around my neck, where it would be safe. I reached down for the cargo pocket on my left thigh…
And discovered it was empty.
“My wallet’s gone!” I shouted to Laurin. “It’s gone!”
I dropped to the floor searching. The train rolled into the next station. The doors opened. I saw four young men sprinting away. The grinning coward in the black shirt was among them.
I knew at once what had happened.
Obviously, we survived that encounter, and we came away wiser for it. That said, if you’re still unsure about international travel, let me put your mind at ease by assuring you that Vienna was the first and last time either of us has been taken in by thieves (it’s never happened to Laurin after 40 years and roughly 50 countries).
That’s why I’d like to wrap up these stories with a few valuable safety tips to you.
First, be mindful of your interactions with others. You still want to be open and pleasant with the locals when traveling. Just be aware of behavior that would seem uncomfortable even in your own country—strangers stepping in front of you, getting in your face, or asking you to hold out your hand. Keep track of your belongings in crowded places, like metro trains and stations.
Second, manage and protect your money, how you carry it and how you use it. Whenever we are in a foreign city, we no longer carry all of our cash with us. Most of our money is kept in a safe back at the property where we’re staying, and what we do carry is kept in a flat belt-wallet I mentioned that fits against my belly. It is almost impossible for someone to access a belt-wallet without seriously violating your space (sticking their hand up your shirt, etc.), and thieves prefer to be more discreet.
Next, put some of your cash in your front pocket. This is so you can easily get to it, and you don’t have to go digging in that belly wallet under your shirt, alerting the world where you carry your money. In Europe, for instance, I like to wear jeans with deep front pockets, and I’ll keep about 40 Euro there separate from the money in the belt-wallet. If I need more, I go to a bathroom stall and transfer money from my belt-wallet into my pocket. That way, I am never seen in public, rooting around in my belt-wallet for the whole damn world to see.
Next, if you have a backpack when you’re out and about, take it off your back and carry it in front when getting onto the underground metro. Those more crowded terminals are rife with thieves, but they’ll leave your backpack alone if you’re visibly monitoring it.
And a final point for female travelers, perhaps the most important tip of all: never, under any circumstances, ever leave your husband’s side. Trust me on this one, ladies. Your man needs your protection far more than you need his.