The Heist

Well, Stacie keeps promising I'll sit down and post something on the blog, but I rarely have time and she does such a great job. However, the little run in we had in Slovakia warrants a bit of a story. Let me just start by saying I will NOT embelish any of the details in my usual story telling matter. This is what we call a "no shitter".
Arrived in Bratislava, Slovakia on 3 Aug and immediately got a bad feeling. The place we were staying was next to a very busy street, there was graffiti all over the place, and there were no nice cars to be found anywhere. My blue licence plates immediately started attracting unwanted attention. We walked around the evening of the 3rd and the morning of the 4th to check things out and get a feel for the city. Once again, not great, but found the old/central part of the city was in much better shape and there were some interesting things to see. The evening of the 4th, we parked at the base of the Bratislava castle with the intent of having a bite to eat and hiking up the hill. As soon as we pulled in, the spidey sense started tingling. There were some folks in the lot that were walking away from another car as we pulled in. One of them was strutting toward us and once again, checking out the plates. Neither of them left the lot . . . We parked and the guy said they closed at 1900. We nearly left right then as we planned on staying there longer, but he said he'd stick around til 2000 if that would work. Working after closing for 1 euro and hour . . . more spidey tinglings. Anyway, there were three of them and the little house was 30 feet from the car. No way anyone was going to mess with the car without the guys seeing it, so off we went. We came back 2 hours later around 1900 after deciding we didn't have a hike in us. I clicked the trunk open and unloaded the kids and dumped backpacks in. When I clicked the doors, nothing happened. After walking around the car, I found if I acted quick, I could open the passenger doors while the lock sequence went thru it's ritual, but the driver door wasn't budging. After getting in, we started getting a bad feeling and took inventory. Everything was there and a quick review of the trunk revealed all was well. After a little more investigation, I found the drivers side key hole had definitely been assaulted and the key wouldn't even go in the door. At that point I confronted the attendant about the vandalism. He immediately clammed up and claimed to not speak any english. I grabbed my cell phone, called the guy who rented us the apartment and got the US embassy emergency contact number. At this point the attendant and his buddies started to scramble and he tells me that I need to leave as they are locking the gates. I wanted to beat the crap out of the guy, but the wife and kids were there, he had two buddies with him, and I still hadn't been able to contact the embassy. So, I told him to his face he picked the wrong guy to screw with and I jumped in the car (as gracefully as I could considering I had to enter from the passenger side). On the way out I started snapping pictures with my cell phone. I got the attendant, one of his buddies, the licence plate of the car they got into, and the lot itself. He was not happy about this!! I finally got hold of the embassy and they said to come in in the morning and we would see what could be done, so I took the family back to our little corner of eastern Europe for the night. It was when we were unloading that I realized both of our laptop computers had been stolen. They left the case in the trunk, so all looked fine when I initially looked in. I about crapped myself when I picked up the case to take it inside and it went limp in my hand. At that point, the damage control started. I spent the next two hours on the phone with the US Embassy in Slovaki, the one in Warsaw, and all of my financial institutions. I did all the usual stuff with fraud alerts, changing passwords, and locking down accounts to any/all activity. We had not planned on losing our personal laptop, so every single number/account that exists in our life was on that thing. The possibilities were endless and all were bad. Stacie and I went to bed exhausted, pumped on adrenaline, and feeling pretty stupid at all the warning signs we had ignored. You like to trust folks, but you just can't these days.
So (are you still reading this) we got up the next morning and contemplated our next move. Go to Budapest and Vienna as planned, hang out and relax in the safest place we could find, or go get the bastards. I opted for the third. I met with the embassy folks and they put me in touch with what's called a Foreign Service National Investigator, basically a local cop type guy that the embassy trusts. He and I had a bit of a discussion and came up with a plan. We went back to the parking lot and I identified the three guys from the previous day. The bad thing was, there was about 4 more no neck goons hanging around the lot, definitely not tourists parking their cars. The FSNI pulled his official vehicle right into the lot, approached the attendant, and pulled him aside. The attendant went from "I don't know what he's talking about" to "when do you need the computers back" after about 3 minutes. I was sitting in the car, but the conversation was happeining right outside the driver's door. Even in Slovakian, I could see his change in heart occur. Good stuff!! We got back in the car and went for a bite to eat while we waited. Seems the parking lots are run by mafia types and this guy was letting some of his gypsy buddies rob cars out of his lot. The fact that he had hit a US diplomat was going to piss off the local authorities and his mafia buddies as well. Seems both the chamber of commerce and the mob love them tourist dollars!! He called the FSNI about 2 hours later and we met him at the embassy. The guy did a dance about not wanting to turn over stolen property to the US Embassy security guards, something about admission of guilt or something. Wuss. Anyway, the FSNI agreed to visit him at the parking lot in an hour. It didn't take that long. The guy had someone deliver the computers to the gate anyway, and 30 minutes later I had my computers back. I think everyone was surprised that the guy didn't just play stupid (as opposed to the level of stupidity he had already displayed), denied everything, and chucked the things into the river to be rid of the head ache. But let me just say, I'm glad he was a spineless little weasel that didn't even know how to play dumb. After we got the computers back, we headed to the local authorities and handed over all the information including the pictures I took. They said they had several thefts in the area, but no hard evidence to act on, now they did. They advised me not to put my name on anything like a police report as that info would undoubtedly get back to the bad guys. My Polish car insurance wasn't going to care what happened in Slovakia and I had my computers back, so, no real need for the report anyway. I PROFUSELY thanked the FSNI for his help and checked out the laptops. It didn't look like they had accessed any files or connected to any networks, so I am relatively certain all of our data is safe. But, I will continue with the security measures I started just to be sure.
When all was said and done, the driver's side car door was jammed shut, so that sucked, but everything else actually worked out well. The locals had a guy they could focus on for the thefts, the FSNI made some new contacts and at least one new friend (me), and we had our only connection to the real world back in hand. There weren't any car chases, I didn't get to shoot anyone or use explosive bubble gum, but it was about as close to that stuff as I want to get in the real world. I can't say as I would recommend Slovakia to anyone and there are definitely a lot of security measures we will be taking with our persons and property in the future.