Find yourself covered in slime? You're being mugged.

I have heard of this specific scam happening in Buenos Aires as well. It's a particularly nasty one.

It's unfortunate, but I would say that on my world trip about 50-60% of English-speaking locals in non-English-speaking countries were trying to get my money somehow. I feel bad for the ones who weren't, because I had to treat them with such suspicion.

But, the rule is, if somebody doesn't have anything better to do than talk to you, they're probably after your money. I never stop walking if someone starts talking to me on the street, until I have an idea of their intentions.

Actually, this gives me an idea for a blog post on the lines I've been fed in this process.

Grrr...I hate to be this person, but why, oh why, is this on Hacker News? This isn't a "hack" or anything new...they've been doing this to tourists for as long as there have been tourists.

A couple of years ago, a couple of prescription drug addicts stole some lawn tools and GPSes from our unfortunately unlocked garage. The local police (we live in a relatively affluent suburb) ended up coordinating with other local police departments and eventually caught the thieves. The police office I worked with thought that these same two guys were likely responsible for over a hundred similar property crimes. One is now in prison, and I'm not sure about the other guy. Unfortunately, my specific loss was not one for which they were prosecuted. Otherwise, I think I could make a claim against the 37 cents/hour (or whatever) those guys are paid in prison.

I'm told that the 80/20 rule applies to petty crime -- a handful of semi-pro thieves are responsible for a majority of the thefts. Given this, it seems that catching a few people who steal laptops, bikes, purses, etc. would actually have a significant impact on local crime levels. A problem with my particular case is that the thieves had already gotten rid of most of the stuff they had stolen, so proving in court that they had committed the crime would have been difficult. How viable of a start-up idea it would be to create "bait" laptops? The company would offer a turnkey service to law enforcement agencies. A special laptop would be provided to the police. It would appear normal at first glance but would record audio (and video?) and transmit GPS locations via a cellular connection. The police would place this laptop in an unlocked vehicle and leave. When the laptop moved, they would be notified via services provided by the start-up. From there, the police could either apprehend the thieves quickly or wait to see where they took the laptop (to get probable cause for a search warrant?). The back-end system would then produce court-ready evidence for the prosecution -- printable maps of activity, times, etc. Perhaps audio/video snippets ready to be played in court?

I did some quick Googling and could not find such a service. I wonder how one goes about selling to law enforcement agencies? Would they be able to make a purchase without 17 visits from a sales rep? Is this even a viable product? Thinking about my own community, I would love to hear about my police department working to reduce random crimes like these. There have been a couple of murders since we moved here a few years ago, but those have both been committed by family members of the victim. My greatest local crime risk is petty property theft.

You don't necessarily need to get travel insurance -- lots of homeowners/renters insurance covers thefts even abroad. I got robbed of my MBP and Kindle in the train station at the Madrid airport in October and the loss was covered. Probably worth checking into when buying insurance in the first place if you're a traveler.

Ever wonder why you read stories in the foreign press about France, Germany, Italy or some other European country deporting its Roma (Gypsy) population? Well, now you understand why they do it. And before anyone says, "He never said they were Gyspies," he's from the U.S., doesn't speak Italian and obviously isn't savvy enough to pick them out, at least when they aren't trying to be noticed. Gypsies do stuff like this to tourists through out Europe. They are a menace, and resist any attempt to assimilate them into modern society, preferring to live in their camps and beg, cheat, and steal to sustain themselves. Yes, downvote away, but it is true, as any European can and will attest.

That's not a mugging. I think you mean robbed:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mugged to assault or menace, especially with the intention of robbery.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rob to take something from (someone) by unlawful force or threat of violence; steal from.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/burglarize to break into and steal from: Thieves burglarized the warehouse.

Just wanted to post that it was pretty stupid of me to travel without travel insurance — I've been so wary of insurance scams, I don't know why it didn't occur to me that this might happen. I was thinking that travel insurance wouldn't be a benefit because I wasn't likely to get sick or hurt, which was really, really silly reasoning now.

That said, thank goodness we were in Rome for three weeks — I have a new passport book (the US Embassy is awesome), and a friend shipped me a spare laptop and phone for the remainder of our trip. We started out with a really bad event made worse by poor decisions, but at least (3 weeks later) things are going well now.

But I thought pickpocketing was a lost art, according to the Salon article we were discussing earlier?

Perhaps a lost art in the old school sense of a mark, a pocket quietly picked, and no one being the wiser, but the run down of events and parties involved sounds identical to the pickpocketing scenario Salon laid out. Just with a more elaborate distraction than bumping into your shoulder.

When I was in Rome, a couple of youths tried the old trap-the-target-in-the-ticket-barriers trick on a friend of mine. Luckily another guy I was with realised what was happening, shouted "watched out" and the two guys scarpered after giving us a cheeky shrug.

This sucks. The part I can't stand is that these seem to be ongoing, easily trackable/predictable crimes. I wonder if travelers would contribute to a kickstarter project to post a few people at a smaller but high-risk train station and see if it's the same small group of bandits operating repeatedly and assist the police in identifying them so they can be aprehended. Do one case study first and hopefully learn some lessons that could be applied more broadly.

Interesting corollary: If you see someone covered in slime, do not point it out, and especially do not offer to help; you might be mistaken for a thief.

Do Americans usually travel without travel insurance?

Cargo pants with buttoned or zipped pockets, bag locks, and never letting go of your bags will go a long way in preventing theft while traveling. Also, the ol' money belt may make your butt sweat, but it's the place for passports, cash cache, and backup credit cards.