Just got back from Maui where I avoided (narrowly), being a clueless tourist who gets his camera stolen.
Here’s how it went down:
I was at the beach taking pictures of my son in the surf boogie-boarding, using my camera in a waterproof housing. Not wanting to keep it in the surf, and not wanting to leave it on the beach with a sign saying “take me please”, I decided to lock it in the trunk of my rental in the parking lot. (No, not a good idea).
After doing this, while walking a short distance to the beach, I felt my spidey senses tingling. A local (well tanned, no shirt, looked like a “dude”) was on a bike nearby. He made a point of NOT LOOKING AT ME. That’s what was odd. He DID NOT look at me. I went to the beach and quickly looked back. He was on his cell. When I looked 10 seconds later, he was NOT LOOKING at me, and was not on the phone. He had a vantage point of the whole beach.
I ducked behind some cover, took off my shirt and whipped back to the parking lot the long way.
I arrived just about the same time as a 2nd “dude” on a small motorcycle was cruising the parking lot looking at license plates. We arrived at my car at about the same time. He stopped. We looked at each other. I smiled and nodded, and looked intently at him. He left.
Took my camera out of the trunk, and walked past dude #1 on the bike. Smilled at him, nodded and looked at him intently. He left moments later.
The whole thing took about 2 minutes start to finish. I would have always wondered “How on earth did they know to hit my trunk? And how did they do it so quickly?”
The people who wrote Maui Revealed (the best Maui guidebook) take everything with them and leave their car unlocked when visiting beaches or hiking or otherwise leaving their car.
Are you saying that the second guy was informed by the first guy–or what did the first guy have to do with it? It doesn’t sound like he was doing anything weird apart from not looking at you.
He was on his cell phone telling his buddy on the motorcycle to swing by the parking lot and pop the trunk of the car that the OP had just stuck his camera in. He was intently avoiding looking at the OP in an attempt to not look suspicious.
The Locals in Hawaii ,who are trying to steal from the tourists, can easily spot a rental car. I could too after being there a day or so. I cant even imagine how much bank they make off of tourists without any sort of speidi-sense.
Thieves are very good at what they do- and organized! I have seen several pickpockets at work over the years and it is fascinating determining who all is involved as there are usually 1 or 2 creating the diversion, a single dipper, and 2+ lookouts. The entire point is looking like locals and not drawing attention to themselves.
The guy who attacked me with a crowbar in New Orleans definately had it staged. After I knocked the crowbar away from him, he drug me across the concrete, ripped my purse off me, and then ambled over to a SUV parked on the street corner. The driver cranks the SUV, he got in, and drove off.
If I’m going to be parking somewhere with something in my trunk, I always make sure to put it there before I park. If necessary I pull over somewhere like a gas station and move the stuff to my trunk. FWIW, I live in a very touristy area, although I’m not sure when I started doing this. It just seemed wise.
They work as a team. You looked like a tourist so they went after you. Good job on sensing the danger and getting back to your car.
When I got mugged it was also a tag team. One diverts your attention and the other one swoops in. I never saw them coming but I was walking down the street and one twirled me around and the second one grabbed my purse. They pushed me to the ground and I saw them jumping a fence. I got my purse back a week later and I never carry money in it in the city. It was very scary and I had a panic attack. Someone walked me home.
In my town they have just caught a man that was knocking on peoples doors to say his car was out of gas and could he use the phone. Once inside he steals the womans purse and takes off. They caught him after the third attempt.
Another is people offering to do yard work. They ask for the money upfront and never finish the job. They were caught also. It pays to be careful and on guard at all times.
Lots of criminals work in pairs-one to scope things out, the other to actually do the stealing.
You see this a lot with house burglars-one will watch the street while the other rifles the house.
cheap cell phones have greatly aided the operations of these crooks.
I know what your talking about. On my way to lunch today, I stopped at the ATM machine. I noticed that there was a guy walking down the sidewalk not looking at me…(did you catch that, not looking at me). So I aborted getting cash out and went on to lunch and used my debit card. That was a close one!
Vegas. We had been there for about an hour, exploring the lobby as our room was getting made ready. My wife has a bad habit of leaving her purse open but we could see it at all times. The only people who even came close was a family of one man and his 3 small children (6-9 years maybe) and only the children ever came close to our table. There were all professionals though. Only when we got to our room did she notice her envelope of cash was gone. Oh well, she gambled in Vegas and lost.