Re: BEGGARS and ….. BEGGARS

You are actually questioning my ability to recognise my own countrymen? Is this your idea or someone else's?

Re: BEGGARS and ….. BEGGARS

Good point Jimmy.

Re: BEGGARS and ….. BEGGARS

Going back a few years I was in Spain enjoying a quiet drink when a beggar entered the bar, she had a badly made ID card and another explaining(in different languages)she was deaf and dumb.

I was a bit suspicious of her so I dropped a couple of coins on the floor, she actually turned around to look. Needless to say she made her escape.

Re: BEGGARS and ….. BEGGARS

Sorry I didn't realise you had the ability to recognise which country a person comes from just by looking at them.
It must be a wonderful talent.

Re: BEGGARS and ….. BEGGARS

What kind souls you are ... Lovely gesture.

Re: BEGGARS and ….. BEGGARS

Some of the beggars change their nationality to suit the occasion. Many of them are working the "Oliver Twist" game, I heard it called that in India. They work for the man at the top and get paid wages depending on how much they have made begging. We´ve seen them many times here being dropped off to their "begging places", always in expensive cars. They don´t do any favours for the truly poor at all.

Re: BEGGARS and ….. BEGGARS

Another one of your ideas ... or is it Orangutan who's fiddling with your mind?

Re: BEGGARS and ….. BEGGARS

I've seen it with my own eyes. Government and media don't like verbal “rumour/bashing”. They're forever saying that we shouldn't blame the sky-rocketing statistics of rape on the migrants, for example, and that it isn't true anyway. The lingering, though unsaid notion then, is that it is we Swedes ourselves who are responsible. When the first wave of Romanian gypsy-beggars arrived we were disgusted. We (the common man) figured them for filthy thieves. Others (the do-gooder humanitarians) said they were being manipulated by organised crime and that the beggar him/herself got very little of the proceeds. NEITHER IS TRUE! Said government-media. They put forth a sob story about how each of them had somehow found their way to Sweden by great hardship (on their own) and were simply trying to make a few bob that was sent immediately to their family “back home”. One woman politician even claimed to have observed a beggar woman to be entirely on her own and in no way are “they” connected to any organisational structure.

I'm retired, with lots of time and nothing to do with it. I decided to do my own sleuthing. I chose the woman sitting in front of the booze shop. After observing her for only 10 minutes, a man came along with second woman, and carrying one of those clasp binders. They exchanged some words in what I assume was Romanian. The women switched places. The man thumbed through the binder which was filled with photographs of children, chose one and handed it to the replacement woman. He then took the original woman round the corner and up the street a bit to another corner (I discretely followed) where he pointed to the pavement where she sat herself. He opened the binder again and chose a photo for her. I followed him to a BMW and off he went. Some weeks later I chanced upon a building in town with a row of shops. Tailor, billiard hall, dry cleaner, etc. One of the shops looked abandoned or “out of business” from a distance. When I got closer I saw that windows were dirty but the door was open. I was curious, I approached. Loud male voices and much cigarette smoke streamed out of the place. I looked inside. It was chock-a-block with dark, eastern European men, smoking, playing cards, drinking coffee. I recognised the Romanian man from earlier. I lingered a distance away and observed. Every now and then one of the men would step out, get into his car (a nice one) and drive off. He'd return only about 20 minutes later. I put 2 and 2 together.

Re: BEGGARS and ….. BEGGARS

Hi

Something that you may not know about the UK.

There are many Roma Big Issue sellers now, they are replacing the older type, in some cases by threats.

There is a reason for this.

If you are a Big Issue seller you are self employed, this then gives you access to Housing Benefit and Child Benefit.

By using a couple of simple loopholes, the organised criminal gangs make a fortune out of this, the money going back to Romania.

Re: BEGGARS and ….. BEGGARS

Begging is a business in very many cases, just like any other business, the boss, the management, the workers. At the shopping precinct many of us use here most of the time, we even know what time the shifts change and which beggars we are going to encounter.