Robbers targeting cash-flush visitors

PARIS — Leon Chen looks frazzled as he shepherds a group of Chinese tourists through the Galeries Lafayette department store in Paris, past stands stacked with luxury bags, perfume, jewelry and caviar.

As a guide, he knows all too well that cash-flush visitors lugging bags of valuables are easy prey for muggers and pickpockets.

“It’s happened many times. The last two groups I had were robbed in this store,” he said, recounting how unseen predators made off with bags momentarily left on the floor by their owners.

“I tell them to hide their money inside their clothes. I try to be more careful everywhere. What more can I do?” he said.

While all tourists are potential prey for thieves, the big-spending Chinese, who have a reputation for carrying wads of cash with them, have emerged as a prime target.

Last week, a group of around 40 Chinese tourists were gassed and robbed outside their hotel near the capital’s Orly Airport — the latest in a series of attacks that have dented France’s image among Asian travelers.

The Chinese embassy in France has noted “several large-scale violent robberies” involving Chinese tourists recently and urged them to exercise caution.

Jean-Francois Zhou, head of the Paris-based Ansel travel agency, said France used to be associated with “the good life and gallantry”.

“That image has been tarnished. Everyone now is aware of the security risks,” he said.

Posing as cops

A receptionist at a threestar hotel in the northeastern suburb of Le Blanc-Mesnil said that her place of work — which regularly receives Chinese groups — had been targeted twice in the past six months by robbers posing as police officers.

After terror attacks in Paris in 2015 and 2016, Chinese arrivals fell 23 percent last year, but tour operators and department stores said that by the summer this year they were back in force.

The police have tightened security and deployed mobile vans to help visitors report thefts in a host of languages, including Chinese.

And to encourage visitors to carry less cash, some department stores have begun installing terminals from Alipay and WeChat Pay.

But for Zhou, “given the scale of the phenomenon, these measures are not enough”.

“The Chinese feel really abandoned in France,” he said.

FRANCOIS MORI / ASSOCIATED PRESS Chinese tourists wait for a bus in front of a fashion store in Paris, France, where dozens of visitors have recently been the victims of robbery.