Executive's Guide to Personal Security, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 6Personal and Business Travel Security

GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS

Those who live in New York City are always amazed by how many millions of people visit New York as tourists each year. They come from all over the world. When you attend a Broadway show, more often than not you will hear the folks sitting next to you speaking a foreign language. (Come to think of it, in New York that really doesn't prove our point, as nearly 60 percent of New Yorkers were born somewhere else.) When you strike up a conversation with them, you find they are here visiting from Germany, France, England, Holland, Japan, and virtually every other country in the world. Sitting in a darkened theater, you really can't identify tourists. When you walk down the street, however, you pick out the visitors immediately. They are the people with the cameras around their necks looking up at all the tall buildings. Or their dress is a bit out of place. Sometimes you just know that a person is not a native New Yorker without even being able to say what it was that tipped you off. Average New Yorkers find it very easy to spot tourists immediately. Unfortunately, the predatory criminals working the streets of New York can do it even better. When they see tourists, they also see dollar signs hanging on easy targets. They may follow tourists into a restaurant and grab their bag or wallet or purchases. Tourists may be marked for robbery or even sexual assault, or it may be something as simple as the CD scam, where ...