Lost and found

This morning when I arrived at work, there was a message on the phone from the Lausanne police informing me that my wallet had been turned in and that I could go pick it up from the Lost and Found office at my leisure. Not a bad way to start a day.

At lunchtime, I took the metro downtown and swung by the office. The clerk there had no idea how or by whom the wallet had been found or turned in, but was happy to give it to me when I presented my passport and a 5 CHF fee. From the looks of it, the wallet had suffered during its time away from me (it had clearly spent some time in the dirt), but was otherwise ok. The police apparently had separated the contents from the wallet, so I received a small rubberbanded stack of cards as well. A quick check through the cards revealed the following.

Items left in wallet:

• My CFF 1/2-price railway pass
  • Pretty much everyone in Switzerland already owns one of these, so I imagine it's not particularly valuable, although it does cost 150 CHF a year.
• My Mobilis transit pass
  • This gets me onto the subways and buses for free, but it is only a monthly pass and expires in less than a week. Thus, I'm guessing, it is not too valuable.
• My Lausanne Public Library card
  • I'm lucky to still have this one.
• My health insurance card
  • This one would have been mildly annoying to replace.
• My EPFL identification
  • I really wasn't looking forward to replacing this, so it was nice to get this back.
• My Budget Migros credit card
  • This is my Swiss credit card and I'm really surprised that this was still inside. It requires a PIN to use for most purchases, but I think what really threw off the thieves is that it looks a lot more like a customer reward card (which it is) than a credit card (which it also is).
• My Stanford Federal Credit Union debit card
  • Another surprise, but it was fairly deep inside the wallet and maybe tough to get at.
• My Coop Supercard
  • Another customer reward card, definitely not a prize.

Items removed from the wallet:

• One 100 CHF bill
  
• My United Mileage Plus credit card
  • No big surprise, this is in the front of my wallet and screams MONEY!
• My PostFinance bank card
  • This doesn't work as a credit card and is only useful for getting cash from an ATM, for which you need a PIN. Of course, I also need it to access my account online so until I get a replacement in the mail, I can't be sure that they didn't do any damage.
• My California driver license
  • This is the real bitch of all bitches. No doubt to stem the (fear of) hordes of illegal immigrants from driving legally, it is a royal pain in the neck to replace your license in the state of California. You have to physically present yourself (and your thumbprint) at the DMV along with another form of government issued identification. What someone over here would want with it is beyond me, unless of course they planned on using it as ID for use with one of the other stolen cards.
• A business card with my Dad's work phone number on it, probably out of date
• A business card from the restaurant "Madame Sans Gênes" in Paris, which I had had on my person (on and off) since I dined there in May, 2000
• A bus receipt from the Airport Shuttle that I took to Ferihegy Airport when I left Budapest in June, 2000

All in all, it could have been worse. In the end, I lost the 100 CHF I had in the wallet, 50 CHF to replace my PostFinance card, and 5 CHF to pick up the wallet. Even though I got some of my credit cards back, I'd already canceled all of them so I still had to cut them up. The loss of the driver license is really the worst part, as it truly cannot be replaced. I called the DMV today and they agreed to mail me "duplicate replacement" which is like a normal license, except it says "duplicate" or "copy" or something else suspicious on it, it doesn't have a picture on it, and it doesn't count as legal identification. As, in theory, I am supposed to apply for a Swiss license soon, I am hoping that this will be sufficient. Switzerland has a deal wherein you can present your foreign license and they will give you a Swiss license with nothing more than an eye test and a first-aid course, so I'm hoping this ersatz CA license will be enough. We shall see.

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Now an amusing endnote to this whole affair. Serge -- the Swiss guy who tried to kill me in France a few months ago -- upon hearing my story told me that the exact same thing had happened to him a few years ago in Geneva! Not exact, like someone stole his wallet, but exact, as in two people accosted him, one tried to get him to do the "Zizou dance", and the other one took his wallet while he was distracted. Unbelievable! Fortunately for Serge, though, he wasn't alone. And, in an even weirder turn, the guy he was with recognized what was going on as the exact same thing had happened to him before as well! He told Serge to look in the second guy's hand, and lo and behold, there was his wallet. Serge took his wallet back and the guys wandered off, claiming the whole thing was a joke, so it was no loss to him. Still, I wish that he had told me this story at some point in time as it really could have prevented a lot of drama.

So, my advice to travelers. First, do not come to Switzerland. It is nothing but a den of thieves (note the 50 CHF fee to replace my frigging bankcard) and roustabouts. If you spend any amount of time here, you will be accosted and you will be asked to do a Zidane dance, during which someone will attempt to lift your wallet. It is as inevitable as death, taxes, and Norv Turner leading the Chargers to Super Bowl glory. When it finally happens and someone comes up to you asking you to "dance like Zidane," you should immediately "make like Zidane" and head butt them as hard as you can in the chest. Maybe it'll teach the little punks a lesson.

The crime of the century!

Having been raised on the mean streets of Kearny Mesa, I pretty much assumed that I would not have too much trouble with the wannabe gangstas and street punks of peaceful Lausanne. Certainly, I've run into some rowdy drunks and been accosted by the occasional obnoxious transient, but nothing I couldn't handle. In fact, until last night, I can't think of a single time that I was even slightly worried about my person or my belongings. That was the night everything changed ...

First, the official police report of the incident (unfortunately in French). It is quite thorough.

Fig. 1: Just the facts, mainly. I note that there are a lot of facts that I was asked for that did not make the report, I have no idea what happened to those.

Fig. 2: The majority of the testimony. Although it is written in first person, I assure you that these are not my exact words. Still, it is quite illustrative.

For those of you that don't speak French, I offer my humble translation of the testimony below:

Yesterday evening, on Rue Genève, I happened to find myself in the presence of the two unknown individuals of whom I have given the above description. I cannot be more precise on that subject. We took the elevator together. During the ascent, one of the two grabbed me amicably by the arm and leg in an attempt to lead me in a dance. I did not resist because I thought that the youths had drunk too much and only wanted to play. In fact, shortly after their departure, I realized that the (stolen goods) which had been in the rear pocket of my pants had been stolen, most likely by the second individual. To respond to your question, I would not likely be able to recognize these men in a photograph.

Although this is my signed and sworn statement to the Lausanne Police, I have to admit that it misses a couple of interesting points. So, I guess I should start at the beginning.

Last night, I went to a bar down in Ouchy with my labmate, Jens. That in and of itself is another (less exciting) story, but the key point is that we left the bar around 11:00 or 11:30 and headed home, both of us having had very little to drink. At my subway stop, we parted ways and I began to walk home. As it was late on a Friday night and I was walking through the hip and happening part of town, there were a lot of people out. Due to the unusual topography of Lausanne, part of my route involved taking a public elevator. As the elevator is next to a McDonald's and other points of interest, I didn't find it unusual that two young men got on the elevator with me. They said bonsoir to me, and I replied bonsoir back. The elevator reached the top and I got out. One of the guys started talking to me in really bad French -- even worse than my French. I could barely understand what he was saying, but for the most part I assumed he was just drunk and being a little obnoxious.

Pretty soon, he just kept saying, "tu connais Zidane?" ("you know Zidane?") and I said, sure, of course I know who Zidane is. Then he kept repeating "Zidane" and then saying "dance". I had no idea what he was talking about. Eventually, he took my hand and stuck out his leg to hook mine, and he tried to dance me in a circle. I smiled, spun around in a circle once or twice, then let go of his hand and said good bye.

I thought it was an usual sort of thing, but honestly I didn't think anything of it. I got home, got ready for bed, and went to sleep. It wasn't until this morning that I woke up and realzied that my wallet was nowhere to be found. True, I could have lost it anywhere (it's not at the bar, I checked), but I am usually pretty good about wallet security. Further, my pants had a button on the pocket, so it would have been extra difficult for me to have randomly lost the wallet. Anyway, I figured that the most likely cause was that the two guys were in fact not drunk but rather well-coordinated thieves who used a simple distraction ploy to get my wallet.

Ultimately, what can you do? I assumed they were drunk and that the best approach was to humor them. Obviously, they weren't drunk and the best approach would have been to keep them from touching me. But, had they been drunk and I had been openly hostile to them, maybe they would have tried to start a fight. Kind of a lose/lose situation all around.

So, this afternoon I got to go to the Lausanne Police station and file a report. It took more than an hour and involved an unbelievable amount of questioning. First, the officer wanted to establish the location exactly. Which elevator? Where? Was it in the elevator that you first met them, or before you got in the elevator? Did the touching take place in the elevator or outside? I tried to be as detailed as I could, but it was tough. He was definitely disappointed that I could only give him the time to within an hour (I probably could have done better if I really thought about it, but what's the point?) and he was totally unhappy with my description of the perps. What could I say? They were average height, average weight, dark hair, and foreign with vaguely spanish accents. I have no idea what they were wearing or what color their eyes were, etc.

He also got a full history of my stay in Lausanne, the names of both of my parents, the countries of origin of both of my parents, my mother's maiden name, my place of birth, my passport number, and I am sure a full description of me. I am surprised he didn't fingerprint me, just to be safe. Forty minutes of questions, then about twenty minutes of him typing and clicking away on a computer, and finally my time was done. I got the above printout and I was assured that if my wallet was turned in, it would be returned to me.

Interestingly, while I was in the station, two other people came in to report that their wallets had been stolen last night in the area! The first was a young Swiss guy, and when he started explaining what happened, the officer cut him off and told him not to make a big deal. He said that since his Swiss ID was in the wallet, if it was found it would be returned to him and that the whole process would take at least a week. He convinced the guy that cancelling his current ID and ordering a new one was such an expensive and annoying process that it was best to wait a week and see what turned up. Of course, there was no need to fill out a police report but he should definitely go cancel his credit cards and contact his bank. The Swiss guy was in and out in two minutes.

Toward the end of my visit, a Romanian man came in complaining about having his wallet stolen. His French was horrible and his English was worse, so he didn't really get very far. When I left, the officer was just starting to try and talk to him, so I didn't get the details. Ultimately, though, I think it's clear that there was a genuine crime wave last night in the streets of Lausanne. I'm sure it'll make the papers tomorrow, so I'll keep you informed of the latest news as it becomes available.

One final note: I have no idea what the Zidane dance is. The internet was no help on this, so I guess it was just some nonsense he made up so he could grab my arm.