Estafadores

Estafadores

In case the title of this post looks strange to you, it's just the Spanish word for "swindler." Anyone who has traveled outside the US knows you have to be constantly on your guard when you are obviously a tourist. Cuba is the same as most other countries--lots of locals are on the streets to try their cons on the visitors.

As an example of little cons, there's the guy who wants to show you where they make the cigars. He gets a little tip from the cigar factory, and if you buy any, you pay an inflated price. The guy who sat down next to me in the Central Park told me how his little brother is sick and needs milk to get well, but the store that sells milk only takes CUC's, convertible Cuban currency that the locals never have. A peanut vendor sells me a paper cone of nuts and tries to give me worthless old peso coins in change for a 1 CUC coin I gave him.

But recently I learned of bigger cons after bigger money and with far more sinister game plans. If you've read earlier blogs about Cuba the dog and Bella, you know we've devoted some time to rehoming street dogs to families in the north. An expensive and exacting activity, lots of time is needed to work out the details properly.

The usual situation is the tourist sees a street dog begging for food, and falls in love with him or her. That tourist goes home, finds our website, and we get emails asking if there is a way we can find that dog. Perhaps the dog is at a beach resort, a tourist area, or hanging around a hotel. If Aniplant gets involved, we can get veterinary help, a health certificate, and find a way to fly the animal to the US or Canada. Well that's a big job with Aniplant doing the work, but it can be done. We've taken on a number of such projects. Except for the emotional appeal of saving "that little hungry dog I found on vacation," it would be far more efficient to stop by your local shelter and have your choice of breeds, colors, sizes, and ages.

The big swindles can come if the tourist makes that commitment to the dog with only a few days left before he or she must leave and then is forced to rely on strangers to try to keep the dog temporarily, get it vet care, and get it to the airport when you can arrange a ticket to fly it to you. "No problem," the pressed tourist says, "I can pay for any expenses involved" to the helpful stranger near the hotel.

"No problem", says the casual thief, "I am a dog lover, I have a clean place for him to stay, and I know a great vet." The tourist thinks to himself, "someone is up there really looking out for me."

I have no doubt the park swindler with the sick little brother would also immediately offer to give a dog a good temporary home and get him to one of the best vets in town. Like the great retailer, Marshall Field, whose motto was, "give the lady what she wants."

And about how much for a couple of weeks' or a month's fostering, food, vet, etc.? Maybe 300 or 400 CUC's (about 1 CUC per $) will do for now, and the tourist is sure he or she can find a way to send more if there are delays before he is flown to north. The tourist and the thief write down their addresses, phones, even emails, but a week later if you go to that address, the little dog will be gone.

Sue, who didn't initially know about Aniplant, contacted us after returning home, and, at my suggestion, asked Nora to check on the Dachshund dog, Diva, and its "foster home" that she had arranged. The wife of the guy she found in the park gave up the dog to Nora (see picture of the Diva substitute), and Nora emailed its picture to Sue. Guess what? Wrong dog! When they knew a real animal protector was coming, they found a different dog to give to her.

Normally, Nora is very careful to be sure she is receiving the right dog, but the email Sue had sent with pictures went astray, and Nora was flying blind when she got to the house with no idea of what the first dog looked like. But still, the dog needed to be removed from this home--the place wasn't suitable for housing a dog.

Sue, a good soul who had placed many dogs in the past, wants to take both dogs if Diva, the first dog, can be found again. It's bad enough when a dog is abandoned in a strange place by the swindler for easy money, but it can be a death sentence for the dog. At least when street dogs are in familiar environs, they can eke out a living begging for food. Right now we don't know where the first dog is, but we're looking.

In another case, we heard of a traveler who came back to Cuba to get the dog for which she had made casual arrangements with a street person, and found the caretaker demanding a large additional payment--basically a ransom demand.

And even if you aren't swindled and inexperienced people don't handle the dog's paperwork carefully, the dog can be held at the flight destination and possibly even killed by Customs. This could happen even after a successful fostering by a well-meaning friend.

Dogs, cats, cigars, peanut vendors, milk for my little brother--all seem to attract swindlers to scam the tourists' money. Frankly, rehoming a street dog isn't a good idea even when you have qualified help, but how do you tell that to a recent traveler who fell in love with a dog a couple of weeks ago when she was in Cuba?

Les Inglis