Studying the Scams in Paris

The majesty of the Eiffel Tower. The twisting beauty of the Seine. Fun times at Paris Disney. After five days in the City of Lights, I could tell you a number of stories, however, one really kept my attention almost the entire time: the cons. In Paris, there are four basic rackets, all meant to burrow into tourists wallets. Now, I know what you’re thinking: shouldn’t this post be about the majesty of Parisian life? Shouldn’t you be telling us about that week with your family in perfect weather? Shouldn’t you be telling us about the splendor of the Italian gallery at the Louvre.

Um, later. We need to talk about this guy.

Every day I'm hustlin' ...

Despite the history, pageantry, and spectacular vistas that are Paris, the two-bits hustlers, how their operations worked and how the police kept after them fascinated me more. So, what follows are my thoughts on how each works and how they connect. After the ‘***’ below, that’s what I discovered on Google. So the first half of this post is strictly my observation and how I *think* things work, and consists of what I wrote before I delved into search engines to find it. The second half is credible accounts of what is actually going on from the search engines and sources.

I’m doing it this way to see if my powers of observation as a reporter and writer are still keen, even as I make best guesses about what’s happening. Again, key here is to better hone my skills as a writer seeing action in the wild and seeing if what I believe is happening jives with with the facts. It’s people watching with a purpose. I’m flexing muscles I’ve had for a long time rather than relying on search engines to come though with an answer.

You should know almost all the scams occur only around tourist spots – Versailles, The Eiffel Tower, Sacré Coeur, the Louvre, and so on. You should also know that I have no idea about how the French laws for this sort of thing work. Finally, you should also know that my wife got annoyed with it by day three (although, we did both had fun trying to figure the scam out). They all have the following things in common:

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• The perpetrators are dressed the same. A tight designer named T-shirt, jeans and running shoes. Did I mention running shoes? Older men wore shirts with collars, jeans or khakis.
• Everything they carried was portable and/or disposable. I’ll get to that in a minute.
• Aggressive but not invasive, like what we discovered traveling in Egypt (save one encounter; I’ll get to that in a minute as well).

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That said, let’s get to the scams:

• The three-card monte. My favorite. At Eiffel Tower, near the Tracadero, there were as many as five games about 10 yards apart. There were four-six people involved on each stop: the guy running the con. He also had a built-in audience to watch him, always included a woman. Audience members were younger and older, playing to both side of the tourist house. Games were played on stacked cardboard boxes. When the cops swooped in, the boxes were cast aside. A lookout usually stood about 10-yards behind to watch for cops. Each con looked exactly the same across the city. Everyone in on the con made like they were just people on the streets. Sometimes I’d see 20s handed across. Sometimes 50s. In those cases, the faux players would “win.” I suppose that was to attract a larger crowd. I never saw the frequency with which these guys would get rousted, but I suspect it was about once an hour. Still, I figured, like all the other cons and illegal sales, they were all connected; one or two cartels working various sides of the town (even at Paris Disney). So, if one stop fished 100 Euros out of the day (possible given an 8-10 hour day), figuring the combined income, that’s between 2,000 or 3,000 Euros a day figuring 20 of these three-card monte stops. Seven days a week? That’s 15,000 Euros a week. And that’s real money.

• Street merchandise sales. More of these guys. The merchandise includes Eiffels Tower of various sizes and colors, silk scarves, usually gaudy with the word “Paris” imprinted several dozen times. These guys traveled light. Everything is kept in an easily hauled piece of cloth with handles that can be snatched up the moment they sight cops. I saw two get arrested. The photos that accompany this blog are from a rousting where one dropped all his merchandise. Passersby claimed all of it. Same deal; one or two cartels that make their own merchandise or steal it from somewhere (I’m SURE they have a cast for these cheap Eiffels Tower somewhere). In any case, it’s more real money. Again, 50-100 Euros per day times 40 or 50 guys canvassing one spot is real cash. Those six for 1 Euro key chains add up.

This is what it looks like when the cops come ... RUNNING SHOES!

• Petitioners. There are women (and only women) who canvass other women to sign a petition. At one corner, there were five or six hitting on almost every woman they’d see pass by. I couldn’t figure out what this was for, then it hit me like an 18-pound sledge: identity theft. Grab someone’s name. Signature. Postal code. Some other info I couldn’t see on the petition. You’ve got the makings of a good start. Again, the same cartels.

Now the also rans:

• At Sacré Coeur, there were guys doing something with string. They wanted me or my 5-year-old daughter to put our finger in the string. We never got that far, although one was aggressive. Felt like a pick-pocketing thing. Plus, it’s a string trick and a Euro is worth $1.39. You think a piece of string or some lame trick using a piece of string is worth $1.39? Not this cat.
• Also, beggars. The beggars, all women, were dressed a lot like the women who took the signatures for petition. One crouched with cup out on the doorway to the entrance of Sacré Coeur. They did have on nice clothes and shoes without a lot of tread worn.

I mentioned that I believe cartels run all these scams. All the money probably flows into one or two places. I’d also guess they are connected to all those merchandise stores that sell the exact same Paris merchandise every 15 feet, so that’s a HUGE pile of money. How much of the business is legal or illegal? Not sure. Again, everything you’ve read so far is based on intuition. However, Paris authorities, via signs and posted bills, wanted to remind me that the money probably flows into something unscrupulous like terrorism or something. Finally, I’d guess that some of the guys doing the selling aren’t doing it of free will; some kind of slavery or, at the very least, indentured servitude.

And now for search-engine magic …

So, I’ve just search-engined for some answers. Here’s what I know, taken from http://www.paris-walking-tours.com/pariscustoms.html#tlf, foders.com, squidoo.com and tripadvisor.com :

• The String Guys. “When approaching the funicular or the Square Willette below the Sacre Coeur, there are men who will approach you and try to take your hand and tie a piece of string around your wrist and charge you for it. Unless you want a 5 euros (sic) piece of string, avoid them. These guys can be fairly aggressive.”
• I only saw this once. “This is the next most common scam: At the tunnel entrance to the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysées, in front of the Notre Dame or at the Place de la Concorde entrance of the Tuileries Garden, a girl or a woman wearing a long skirt will ask you, “Excuse me, do you speak English?” It is natural to respond, “Yes”, to be friendly and maybe helpful. You will then be shown a piece of paper which asks for money.
• On beggars. “Often there are beggars at the door-steps of churches (DING!). One guy was sitting there with a brand new portable DVD player that I wish I had. Bad form on his part.”
• On petitions. “A new scam for 2010 is children and adults pretending to be deaf on the steps leading to the Sacre Coeur.  They approach you quite forcefully with a clipboard, indicating that you should sign it and give them some money. If you try to give them a few euros, they will turn over their clipboards which on the back say: ’10 Euros Minimum.’  If you give in to it and you remove your purse or wallet, they see where you keep it and when several children hug you to say thank you, they steal your purse or wallet from where they know you keep it.”
• On street vendors. “Most of the sellers are immigrants from Africa or (I think) Pakistan or India, and most are illegally in France. Of course, they are not operating legitimate businesses and pay no taxes, unlike the legal vendors trying to compete with them with retail stands. The food they sell (usually drinks, in practice) is often expired and stolen.”

[video style="medium_center" title=""]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w1kng_UV5Y[/video]

• Three-card monte (actually called Trinidad Monte). “This is rather new here in Paris. Started less than 2 years ago, but it is a well known scam worldwide. Usually it involved at least 3 scammers, the one that host the game and 2 lucky “friends” winning lots of money and trying to bring real targets in the game. Don’t play, you won’t win. It is all scam, and played out to lure the unsuspected tourists (and locals). You will loose (sic)! Once again, mainly done by gypsies, but don’t be fooled if it is hosted by others. You will find these games where there is a lot of affluence: Tour Eiffel, Saint-Michel among other. Police are shutting them down, but they just move and start again.” More here on how the scam works: http://scams.wikispaces.com/Three+Card+Monte

So that’s that.

Oh, and the Italian gallery at the Louvre is nice, too. ;)

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