My husband and I were sitting at a table outside a fast-food restaurant in a bustling Santiago neighborhood, exhausted after a nine-hour flight, when someone dropped some coins at my feet.
I bent over to help him scoop them up. They must have spilled out of a hole in his pocket, I figured. Then a few more clattered onto the sidewalk. My husband leaned in to help.
Pam and Chris LeBlanc’s passports were stolen during a recent trip to South America. Pam LeBlanc photo
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Suddenly, something felt weird. I bolted upright and yelled at Chris, “Where’s your bag?”
He grabbed for his backpack, which he’d set on the chair next to him, but it was gone – along with our passports, his wallet and driver’s license, a wad of cash, his prescription eyeglasses, ear buds, and a library book. A man at a nearby table pointed down one street, and we gave chase.
It was pointless. We realized quickly that a group of thieves had targeted us. One man distracted us by dropping the coins, another grabbed the backpack, and a third pointed us in the wrong direction to chase the thief down.
What happens next?
Thank goodness Chris still had his cellphone, and I had my backpack, along with my own wallet and valuable camera gear. But we lost $400 in cash – especially frustrating since we rarely carry cash when we travel. (Our tour group had advised us to bring cash because we’d be visiting areas that might not accept credit cards.)
Luckily, some quick action kept a bad situation from getting worse.
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After we gave up chasing the thieves, who had scattered in all directions, we made a hasty game plan. Chris would cancel the credit cards that were in his wallet while I called the U.S. Embassy to find out what we needed to do to get emergency replacements. We also asked workers at the restaurant to call the police.
Chris has an online app that tracks his credit card purchases. He immediately cancelled two of his cards, but forgot about a third. Fifteen minutes later, the thieves used that one to place a charge for $2,100. Chris contacted that credit card company, which froze the payment.
Contact the US Embassy
Meanwhile, I reached the U.S. Embassy, where a representative told me we’d need to apply for emergency passports. (Here’s a list of embassies.) I made an appointment to go in the next morning to fill out the necessary paperwork. We needed the passports quickly, because we planned to fly to southern Chile in two days, then cross into Argentina after that.
We tracked down a shop that took passport photos and set off to get that done. We also reached out to the leader of our group tour, whom we hadn’t yet met.
Then, a miracle. After getting new mugs made for the passports, I got a call and a text from the Embassy. Someone, an official told me, had called in to report finding our passports (but not the rest of our belongings) in a trashcan. The official gave me the woman’s contact information.
Since we’re not fluent Spanish speakers, we enlisted the help of our tour group leader (what an introduction!), who contacted the woman, then called an Uber and went with us to retrieve our documents.
The woman who found the passports worked at a bank. She’d gone out to take a smoke break and noticed a couple of passports in a small trashcan on the sidewalk. She pulled them out and – here’s the lucky part – decided to call her son, who works in customs at the Santiago airport. He advised her to call the U.S. Embassy. If she’d called the police, it may have taken days to reunited us with the passports. We’d have missed part (or all) of our trip.
We thanked the woman, hugged her, gave her a reward (which she tried to refuse), and made our way back to the hotel. We’d lost some cash and a few odd items, but with our passports in hand, we could get on with our trip.
What we did wrong
A couple of things had conspired to make us victims of petty theft.
First, we’d just arrived in Chile, and our hotel room wasn’t yet ready. We left our suitcases at the hotel desk, but took our passports with us because we didn’t want to leave them unattended. Second, we were jet-lagged and not thinking clearly. Third, we didn’t pay attention to the warning signs, like burglar bars on nearby buildings. When someone dropped money on the ground right next to us, we didn’t realize at first what was happening
How to avoid becoming a victim yourself
Take a few precautions to reduce the chances of having your belongings stolen.
- First, carry your passport in a zipped interior pocket or in a cross-body bag. Or leave it in a safe in your hotel room, if you’ve got one.
- Second, be aware of your surroundings. Buildings in the neighborhood where we were walking were equipped with metal security bars. Also, we’d been told that thieves sometimes grab cellphones out of the hands of unsuspecting pedestrians. Still, we weren’t on high alert.
- Never set your bag on a chair next to you – especially if you’re outside. Keep the strap looped over your shoulder or the bag in your lap.
- Know exactly what’s in your wallet, and immediately cancel all your credit cards. Keep a list so you don’t forget one of the cards, like we did.
- Use your cellphone to take a photo of your passport and keep it on your phone.
- Report the theft to police (we waited an hour at our restaurant, but they never arrived) so you can get a theft report for insurance purposes.
- Contact the U.S. Embassy to report the incident and find out what to do next.
