Scoundrels and Scalawags, an old Reader’s Digest compilation of the exploits of con men throughout history, is one of my father’s favorite books. Admittedly, the modus operandi of famous con men sometimes made me quip, “Conning may equal brilliance!”
When I was a kid, five men were put to trial for one of the biggest swindling cases in the history of my town. The complainant was a rich dowager. As the trial progressed, what the accused did, an idea which may not be that novel and yet brilliant just the same, begun to unfold.
One morning, Rich Dowager’s tenant came running into her house bearing some mysterious news: she heard voices that seemed to emanate from a mound within Rich Dowagers’ farm. The voices were chilly and haunting; it gave her the shivers.
“Juaniiiiiing*, Juaniiiiing*, Juaniiiiing*,” the voices echoed. “We are the spirits of your ancestors. This mound on which we stood is a holy ground. If you offer this X amount, you will get them back threefold.”
This went on for weeks. Rich Dowager heeded the voices—coins at first, then bills, followed by more bills and then bundles of bills until she gave about .3 million pesos (a helluva lot of money!). But when the offerings started to vanish without her getting any centavo back, Rich Dowager started to have doubts and brought investigators to survey her property for anomalous activities.
The police uncovered bamboo poles running a few kilometers under the ground. Inside the poles were wires connected to a microphone at one end and to a speaker at the other end. This lent the voices an otherworldly effect. The whole device was powered by a battery and took the accused months of careful planning and set up. The accused would position themselves from their hole in the other side of the cliff to deliver their respective lines.
The bottom line of the story is this: if your preoccupation is money, your weakest point might also be money.
Elisa*, a college student and my current roommate told me she was conned herself while working as cashier-cum-server in a small canteen in Manila. One busy morning, a woman came in and ordered the best dishes in the menu. When she was stuffed and contented, she asked for a piece of paper and pen and proceeded to scribble something. Then she asked Elisa to read her writings. The poor girl stared intently at the jumble of indecipherable characters. When Elisa lifted her eyes to ask what it meant, the woman was gone, her orders unpaid.
A family friend was a victim of conning herself. She gave her jewelries to a stranger she met on her way out of the bank. As easy as that! The woman approached her as a long-time-no-see-but-now-see-now relative. They went to a café and talked. Halfway through their coffee, the woman excused herself to the powder room but before leaving she asked our friend to watch the bag where she kept her bundles of bills. So that our friend would not run away with the money, she needed collateral: our friends’ diamond ear studs and necklace. Trustful to a fault, our friend conceded and thus, was conned.
The paper bills? Na, they were bond paper cutouts and play money secured with rubber bands.
Scoundrels and scalawags are everywhere. Part of our daily survival tactics when out in places notorious for con men, swindlers and robbers is to brace and insulate ourselves against their web. Be street smart. We clutch our bags to our chest; we wear our backpacks in-front of us; we walk fast; we avoid seedy streets; we make ourselves appear tough; we keep our money in the least expected places; we keep a low profile; and we don’t talk to strangers.
Then, at times, we just brush fear aside with good old Filipino humor, “Ah, sa maisahan lang” (That would depend on who gets conned first). And we hope that this should get us through the next day!
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*Not their real names
