[Gocamino] [saintjames] A Camino scammer

Tue Jan 16 01:40:25 PST 2007

Hello you all,
I am forwarding a translation of Stacey's message, and Alejandro's fotos, to the Pilgrim's office.  Perhaps they can alert the albergues.
What language(s) does he speak? Is he, for sure, from a particular country? That infrormation may help.
Pity that such an attractive-looking fellow would resort to löw-life practices.
Interestingly, here in crime-free Vienna, the only criminal behavior reported -most of it petty, such as shop-lifting, not paying in restaurants or riding the (wonderful) trams or subways without paying- is perpetrated by foreigners, and quite a few of them are tourists. I myself have seen, in quite a few occasions, tourists slip things from the museum shops into their bags without paying for them, and serving themselves to food in the cafeterias while the cashier was distracted or momentarily absent; when caught, they have pretended not to understand the language, although I had heard them speak in a variety of accented English which most everyone in the shops in Vienna speaks.
In New York City, by the way, one cannot board a bus or a subway without paying first. "Jumping the turnstile" subjects the perpetrator to immediate arrest.... in handcuffs  and everything. Here in Austria, as in Italy, public transportation runs pretty much on the honor system; there are sporadic inspections on board, and riders caught without a validated ticket have to pay, right there and then, about twenty times the price of the ticket, or more.
Regards,
Rosina  

-----Ursprüngliche Mitteilung-----
Von: GASpangler at hotmail.com
An: saintjames at yahoogroups.com
Verschickt: Mo., 15.Jan.2007, 21:51
Thema: [saintjames] A Camino scammer

A Camino scammer story as recounted in an Email from Peregrina 
Stacey: 

I just thought I would run this one by you to see how you want to 
handle it. 

I walked the Camino starting in Pamplona and ending in Fisterra. 
Along the way I met some fantastic people, but a group I ended up 
walking with from Astorga on and I were really screwed over by a con 
artist along the way. 

His name is Alejandro, and he walked with us for a couple weeks. He 
told us he had walked from Belgium and that he had been walking for a 
little over a year; this is about all he told us that we think is 
true. The rest of the story was that he had been in a car accident 
and in it lost his wife and two kids. In the end when we arrived in 
Santiago all together he ended up stealing 150 Euro from me, my iPod, 
and another hundred Euros from another in our group, then 
disappearing. When other Pilgrims heard our story they said they had 
met him as well and that he had a similar story and got 20 Euro from 
them. 

We should have been more careful, and I think we learned a valuable 
lesson. The next day we caught up with him in the pilgrim office and 
I did get my iPod back. The money wasn't an issue and I honestly 
didn't care about it. Anyways, I am only afraid that he may continue 
walking other routes and duping other pilgrims. Since he walked with 
us for so long I have plenty of pictures of him and if you would like 
I could forward some to you. I do think it may be a good idea to post 
something about this on the web site because I would hate for his 
scams to continue. We did do our best to spread the word on our end, 
and to send Emails out etc. 

Four Photos of Alejandro:

http://www.elcaminosantiago.com/Scam/Camino_Scam_Alejandro_01.jpg

http://www.elcaminosantiago.com/Scam/Camino_Scam_Alejandro_02.jpg

http://www.elcaminosantiago.com/Scam/Camino_Scam_Alejandro_03.jpg

http://www.elcaminosantiago.com/Scam/Camino_Scam_Alejandro_04.jpg

Thus, kind readers, we see there is little changed since Chaucer 
penned The Canterbury Tales. Thieves and con men are still plying 
their trade. The 'wolf in sheep's clothing' as exemplified by 
Alejandro is as effective as ever. 

Be spontaneous, live in the moment, have fun, but be watchful. 

Buen Camino, 

Grant 

Grant Spangler 
GASpangler at hotmail.com 
groups.msn.com/ElCaminoSantiago 
community.webshots.com/user/ElCaminoSantiago

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