You’ve watched Locked Up Abroad and, while you sympathize with the storytellers, you can’t help but feel like maybe they deserve their jail sentences.
Letting a “friend” you just met pack your bags; traveling to war-torn countries; swallowing tiny, plastic-wrapped pieces of hashish — only crazy people do these things. You’re not crazy; therefore you’ll never find yourself in handcuffs.
If that’s what you think, as you read further, count the number of things in this list you’ve done.
1. Paying for a transaction entirely with coins
Two Chinese tourists paid for the first night of their hotel stay in Paris with 70 one-euro coins. When they tried to do the same thing on the following night, the hotel owner called the police. The two men were detained and their room was searched.
The French police found 3,000 one-euro coins in the room and 700 more on one of the men. All these coins weighed 28 kg in total.
The police suspected the men of forgery, but the coins were authentic. They had bought the coins from scrap metal dealers in China, who often found coins in unwanted European cars.
To avoid something like this, stick with credit and debit cards as your main methods of payment when you travel. Only carry and use cash when you have to, especially when the cash in question is heavy enough to trigger excess-luggage fees.
2. Forgetting your wallet
An Italian tourist ate at a high-end NYC steakhouse and, when the $208 bill came, realized he didn’t have his wallet with him. He offered to leave his iPhone behind while he gets his wallet from the hotel, but the restaurant wouldn’t have any of it.
The police was called and the tourist spent the night in jail. Later, the court dismissed the misdemeanor case and he ended up paying the restaurant a total of $219.21. There’s no mention of whether this included tips.
3. Picking up an abandoned item
Ever found a dollar on the ground? Well, if you’re in NYC, don’t pick it up.
A tourist from Atlanta found a purse lying on a park bench at Central Park. Upon further inspection, he found $27 and no ID. He took the cash out of the purse, at which point some policemen suddenly appeared and cuffed him. The purse turned out to be a prop for the strange “Operation Lucky Bag” the NYPD was running.
4. Becoming curious about a police car chase
In another crazy example of the “Operation Lucky Bag”, the NYPD staged an elaborate car chase. One speeding car braked right by a mother and her teenage daughter, followed closely by the second car. The driver of the first car ran off as the plainclothes policemen from the second car pursued him on foot.
The teenage bystander approached the open door of the first car to get a closer look and called her mother over when she saw a big bundle of money inside. Police officers promptly appeared and arrested the pair, even though they didn’t even touch the money.
5. Having insufficient balance at the bank
In Dubai, it’s a criminal offense to bounce checks. In the 2008 Dubai real estate crash, quite a number of businessmen failed to pay their business debts and were jailed.
One particular property developer, a Briton by the name of Peter Margetts, bounced 49 checks and got a 46-year sentence. The sentence was later slashed to 23 years. In 2012, he went on hunger strike in jail to protest his sentence and suffered a stroke as a result.
Margetts put an end to his hunger strike when the attorney-general recommended that the court change the way it prosecutes such cases. However, the court rejected the recommendation, which would have dramatically reduced Margetts’ sentence.
As of September, 500 businessmen were estimated to remain in Dubai jails.
Images: 1. (Free License); 2. 401(K) 2012 (CC BY-SA 2.0 License); 3. Andrew Magill (BB CY 2.0 License); 3. Pete (CC BY 2.0 License).
Another reason why to hate New York City. Sad this city controls my whole state basically.
Yeah, that operation doesn’t really make much sense, does it?
Can’t believe a guys spent a night in jail because he forgot his wallet!
Stranger than fiction!
“Operation Lucky Bag” has a funny name xD Well, I’m adding NY to my list of cities where I definitely will go to jail :) I’m pretty sure I’ll forget about this if I ever go there xD
Lol it’s a real danger! :D
300 euro in coins! Wow, I wonder why no one paid attention to that at the airport…
And it’s not odd that the French hotel called the police. As I’ve noticed why living in France, people here rarely pay for anything in cash. Credit cards or checks mainly.
When I come to the supermarket with a 100 euro bill, the cashier looks sort of puzzled and inspects it for quite a while.
Yeah, $100 bills aren’t welcome in many places here in Canada either!
Good stories. Reading your lead, I was right there with you; not stupid, don’t do those things, I’m ok. But twice in LA I picked up cash and wallets on the street — and worked hard to get them back to their very grateful owners. Sad that my home city has a sting on that hurts people rather than helps. New Yorkers help one another and this prevents that. I’m sick over that. As for Dubai, I wouldn’t go there for anything. Far too dangerous. This just reinforces that.
Thanks, Deborah! :D It’s crazy that they’re wasting taxpayers’ money on that crazy operation in NYC. What’s the return on investment? It’s not as if there aren’t any real criminals left in the city. I’ve heard several horror stories about Dubai, too. It’s not on my list of countries to visit any time soon, but I can’t really say it’s because of those stories.
lol I would so get jailed for picking stuff off the ground, I always do it! Funny post !
Ha, my husband does that too!
I guess I shouldn’t go to Dubai then ;-) Oh and I would definitely get jailed in NY! haha =) Great post.
Lol we can keep each other company in that NY jail. :D
Nice to see my tweets inspire you :D
Lol! This post went up before the #travex chat. If I read your Tweets before writing this, I would’ve added “Having a Thai ladyboy stick a stiletto in your back”. Now I’m wondering whether this “stiletto” is of the weapon variety or the footwear variety.
Huh! How about that. T has forgotten his wallet a couple of times at supermarkets and run out to the car while I stay with the items as they go through checkout. He also picked up $15 in cash off the road in Toronto.
That Lucky Bag thing is seriously scary. I hear there’s a minimum amount before they arrest you but it’s quite a low amount, like $20, if I’m not mistaken. Many of the people they arrest have no priors, which makes sense.
How curious! That’s fascinating, Deia. Now i feel like I should go check out the NYPD’s “Operation Lucky Bag”.
EWM
I found out about that not too long ago. Don’t you feel like they should have better things to do? It’s not like NYC is known for its safety.