Senegal: Dakar’s classic thieves

RNW - May 12 - Open any tour guide book on Senegal and you will come across the same warnings: Be careful of robbers, watch out for thieves and be aware of pick-pockets when you are in a crowd.

By Sheriff Bojang Jnr, Dakar

Besides its beautiful weather, sandy beaches, attractive architecture and the warm hospitality of its people, the Senegalese capital Dakar is known for its high rate of street robbery.

Snatch and run
With tourists and expatriates as main victims, the robbers normally snatch bags, wallets, cell phones and other belongings from people in the streets, markets, nightclubs and other public areas. Usually, the robbers would be suspicious-looking disgruntled youths in their dirty clothes and their trick would be snatch and run.

But Dakar has recently been witnessing a new type of robbery. Lately, robbers no longer look suspicious either by the way they dress or approach their victims.

Tickets to Mali
Lee Evans is a British carpenter who visited Dakar with a friend from Brighton as part of their voluntary work in West Africa. I hosted them for a few days through online social network, couchsurfing. One morning, Lee and his friend left my house to go to the city center to buy their coach tickets for Mali.

On their way, a gentleman wearing a suit and carrying a file, approached them. ‘He told us that his family owned a travel company and he could take us to the office to buy our tickets to Mali’, Lee says.

Professional
The two British lads trusted the man because ‘he looked genuine and his approach was professional’.
Lee and his friend also needed to change some cash and the gentleman again offered to help them out. He claimed his family had a money exchange shop. They handed over their bank notes of more than 100 pounds sterling to him.

After a long walk and interactive discussion with the man, they arrived at a street corner with a narrow walkway. He told them to wait for him in the corner while he went into the ‘shop’ to change their money. When the man didn’t come out for about 10 minutes, Lee and Evans looked into the ‘shop’ to find out what their helper was up to. To their surprise, it was in fact a walkway leading to a busy main road.

Fancy car
This new form of robbery also extends to the middle-class neighborhood of Dakar. Madame Kane and her husband were at work when a smartly-dressed man parked his fancy car in front of their house.

The man told the couple’s maid that he worked with Madame Kane and that he was instructed by her to collect some items from her bedroom. The mysterious man pretended he was talking to Kane on the phone and the maid believed his story.

All was left for him to do was to walk into the bedroom and take Kane’s expensive jewelries and other personal items before driving off.

Desperation
Hassane (not his real name) is serving a six-month jail term for robbing a Belgian couple earlier this year. He introduced himself as a smart bar owner in Dakar and conned the couple into believing that he was taking them to his bar.

Hassane eventually took them to an isolated area and while they were taking photos of the area he ran off with their bag containing money, bank cards and passports.

He was given a light sentence after pleading guilty of the crime. While he feels sorry for the couple, he blames the system for his action.

‘I was not born a thief but what else could I do? There’s no job and no one in high offices care about poor youth like us’, he said in the prison meeting room.

Confusing

Asked if he would rob again when he’s out, he said with a broad smile: ‘Only God knows. I’m only human’.

The rate of ‘classic’ theft has been growing, Police Inspector Gueye told RNW, citing the dress code and new tactics used by thieves.

“Because the new thieves dress smart and approach their victims in a professional and confident manner, it would be difficult to arrest them since the police would not know if they are genuine people or thieves”, the inspector says.