Posted by nomadmac on June 21, 2005 at 1:17 am:
I departed Bali on the 10th of June. While I found some mention of the card/gambling scam in the archives on June 9th, I felt it was important enough to post further details of the scam that I got sucked into. I only lost about $80 US, it could have easily been thousands or my life.
It was one hell of an experience and a great education that I received in less than a couple of hours. It was great theater. I learned about cheating at cards, how scams use your vices and virtues to pull you in, how to instill trust in the "mark" by making it seem that someone else is the "mark", etc.
I was engaged in a conversation by a man between Bali@Cyber Cafe and the Bombing Memorial. I know that it is a syndicate because it happened to me on Thursday the 9th, when I got sucked in, but I was also approached on Monday by a different group playing the same scam. The group on Monday presented themselves to be Malaysians, Thursday's group, I believe to be Indonesian but probably not Balinese.
Here's what happens:
A man will engage a single tourist, (probably restricted to a male), in a conversation on the street.
He will find out where you are from.
He will tell you that he has a sister/daughter that will be going to school/work in a hospital near there.
He will not know the specific name of a school/hospital and will coach you for suggestions.
He will open his wallet and show you a picture of a very pretty 22-23 year old girl. In retrospect, I'm almost positive it was a photo of the same girl on both attempts.
He will tell that the mother of the girl is concerned about her safety and would like more information about the area.
He will request that you go to Denpasar to meet with the girl and talk with the mother. In the first instance, they would find some excuse not to meet locally. I suggested coffee locally but they responded they just had lunch. Their goal is control the environment by getting you to Denpasar.
The man will introduce you to his family in a dark, non-descript, full-sized van parked locally.
In the van, will be three people: a male driver, a woman in the passenger seat and another woman sitting behind the driver. You will be directed to sit in the center of the bench seat. The man who approached you will have control of the exit door and will be on your left.
The woman are there to help make you feel comfortable with situation as to let your guard down, present an image of safety, engage you in conversation so you are distracted with where the van is going, ensure that you sit in the center so your view is restricted to out the front window which is mostly the road in front, so you see less out the side window and get a poorer fix on landmarks as you pass.
At some point, you will be informed that the sister/daughter has taken the mother to the hospital but will be home shortly.
In this particular scam, the one I experienced, an "uncle" will be lounging in the foyer watching TV and the rest of the family will disapper to a back room.The "uncle" tells you he is a croupier on a cruise ship and he can help get a cheap ticket. Perhaps you would like to make some money by cheating the house and shows how he will signal to you to what the next card in the deck will be or what your opponents hidden card is in blackjack.
Once you have been primed, he informs you that some women are coming over to play mah-jong but that one lady, a very rich but stupid woman from Singapore, has arrived early. He'll front you $100 to begin with. The woman will arrive playing the role of a jewelry shop owner and will be bathed in gold and presenting large quantities of folded bundled dollars secured with a rubber band. On the outside will be a $100US bill and you , of course, will never be shown the underlying bills.
The croupier will consistently seek reassurance from the "mark", the woman from Singapore, that she trusts him as she continues to lose every hand to you. The croupier will continue to loan you chips as you continue to win. At this point, the real "mark", the tourist, will get sucked into the game and the potentail of winning a large amount of money. In my case, $18,000!
The victim, of course, will not be travelling with such large amounts of cash and it will be the last hand. The woman from Singapore will request to see your funds at this point. While she was presented as being stupid, she will easily recall the progression of transactions by looking at the chit sheet.
You've "seen" her money and now she wants to see yours. You will meet in another room to discuss finances with the croupier in another room. He'll suggest putting her funds in a lockbox, give her the key along with your respective card hands in a separate and sealed envelopes. And you will driven to a bank to get cash from a credit card advance or your ATM to make up the cash difference from what the croupier "can get" from the local money lender. The "uncle", the croupier, will use a variety of technics to get you to come up with the difference; guilt, intimidation by belligerence, etc.
The original gang of four will take you to a bank of their choosing. The man who initially approached you will go into the bank to make arrangements for your cash withdrawal. It is not hard to imagine that bank staff is on the scam.
This is the point at which I called my partner, confirmed it was a scam and made a hasty exit. I shudder to think what could have happened had I confronted them at any point, actually withdrawn the money or even gotten back into the van.
I related my story to "Jack" Suparma of Satriavi Leisure Management as he took me to the airport. He related that one should never shake hands with people like this as they have black magic. I note that after every hand, that the croupier had me shake hands with the woman from Singapore as a gesture of good will. And while I was aware that something was amiss, I was surprised that many of the pieces weren't coming together as quickly as they should have during the moment.
I feel this scam has a very real potential for violence and could do even more damage to the already beleaguered tourist trade if left unchecked and tragedy results.
Information is the best weapon against these bastards.
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