Chatting with Mike about the Olympics, he indicated that the most interesting part was the pickpockets in the crowd. Many papers have been written on the white-market economic impact of the Olympics on a city; what about the underworld, the black markets?
Rigged construction bids, black market house/room rentals, olympic doping, street scams, price gouging, pick pockets... it seems like the black markets could be quite large.
Might make for a good investigative series....
The number of violent crimes in Vancouver jumped 30 per cent during the Olympics, police say...
There was also an increase in sexual offences, with 11 more reports than the 16 incidents reported in the same period in 2009. But other types of crime such as theft and break and enter decreased by six per cent during the Games...
Gordon also said the statistics may not be completely accurate because victims of crime who were from foreign countries may have been less likely to call police...
London set to be flooded with prostitutes during Olympics as escort agencies touting 'gold medal' services cash in on Games trade...
New firms spring up offering 'Olympic escorts' and 'gold medal services'...
Industry boom: Sex trafficking almost doubled during the 2004 Athens games...
Fans holding fake tickets sold from an unauthorized website to the games' first London-based event, the preliminary ranking round in archery, were refused entry today...
Simon Bevan, a partner at the accounting firm BDO LLP in London said that ticket fraud pales in comparison to other crimes spurred by the games. "Ticket fraud during the Olympics will be dwarfed by procurement and construction fraud," Bevan said...
Already Eastern European criminals have been passing themselves off as ?plain-dressed? officers and imposing fines on unsuspecting members of the public. The conmen have fooled visitors into thinking they are legitimate officers by flashing fake warrant cards and carrying out 'routine' bag searches.
A number of suspects have already been arrested.
The paper?s undercover investigator was first provided with a genuine Pakistani passport in a false name. Then leading Lahore politician Abid Chodhary spelled out how for around 7,000 pounds he could get our man a two-month visa and smuggle him into London 2012 as part of Pakistan's Olympic squad. The Sun secretly filmed Chodhary as he explained how easy it was to get into the Olympic Village by masquerading as a member of the athletes support team.