Carlos Beckles Thompson Scams Another Expat At the Tocumen Airport in Panama
By DON WINNER for Panama-Guide.com - Received this morning via email: "Well I feel dumb. I just got back from a working trip to Honduras and stopped over in Panama. Long story short, I've been duped by this conman, and just found out when I decided to do some preliminary googling before contacting him. On the off chance that another voice added to the record will make a difference, here's my story: He approached me on the 8th of July 2009 in Tocumen airport, Panama, and over the next hour detailed some of what appears to be a habit: that he left his stuff in a taxi and had nowhere to stay. He said his name was Terry Allen, had a wife Michelle, and showed pictures of people whom he claimed were friends and family (I wasn't that interested, and suspect that he was running through a list of things to be trustworthy). He even had one of what appeared to be a US military funeral, and claimed to have just returned from Bagdad, where a friend of his was killed. The whole 'heroic soldier' thing I found a little hard to swallow at first, and would probably have avoided him had my sister not recently found herself penniless in a foreign airport, so his story played on my sympathies. (more)
- He gave me an address: Terry Allen, 6158 S Ellis, Chicago IL 60649
- the familiar email address: stopthewar00@hotmail.com
- and a phone number: 001 773 220 9629.
- I had some money on me and was fatigued from travelling, so probably a bit slow in the head at the time. I decided to be a good person and trust him, and ended up being scammed out of about $300.
- In hindsight, his insistence on backing up everything he said with photographic or anecdotal evidence did seem suspicious. And when he made phone calls on a rather nice phone, I didn't hear a voice on the other end (I put it down to it just having a quiet volume). All I can add is that he's now a bit thinner than he was when the picture on that licence was taken.
- If you have any further knowledge or resources to contact about this I'd appreciate it, or if you've stopped following the case just let me know and I'll look elsewhere.
- Regards, A.
Another One Bites The Dust: This guy, Carlos Beckles Thompson, is a serial con man who constantly preys on tourists in Panama. He will only hit you with his "pitch" if he knows you are just passing through, a tourist, and not a resident. He does not want to take the chance of duping someone who will stick around long enough to file a complaint with the authorities. He has been doing this exact same scam for years, and his method continues to slowly evolve over time. This is the first that I've heard of him working the Tocumen airport - normally he's around the tourist hotels and such. I have no idea why the Panamanian authorities don't simply identify this guy and roust him every time he appears around tourists. He will continue to do this routine, probably for the rest of his life, because it's how me makes his living. And, like this victim, he now knows he's been scammed, but he also has not filed any kind of a complaint with the authorities, which means in effect as far as law enforcement is concerned it practically never happened. He gets away with it, and that's why he keeps doing it.
Copyright 2009 by Don Winner for Panama-Guide.com. Go ahead and use whatever you like as long as you credit the source. Salud.
