With over 80,000 security personnel on ground for the Rio Olympic games, petty thieves are rife at the Olympic 2016 games destination stealing bags, phones and internet network connection by setting up fake hotspots which mimic real ones and by so doing expose owners of the actual hotspots to hacking. Once a legitimate hotspot is hacked into, personal information like bank account details and passwords can be obtained.
It was also reported that Team Denmark had some of their gear stolen including mobile phones, clothing and an iPad.
Rio spokesman, Andrada advises, “Don’t count money in the street. If you have a nice camera, put it into a bag and only use it when you have to take pictures. If you are alert, if you are looking around and paying attention, your chance of being a victim will be decreased. The bad guys usually look for people who are not paying attention.”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ohxKIHVbgkY%2520frameborder%3D0%2520allowfullscreen
Innocent people on the streets of Brazil being robbed of the most mundane stuff (Uploaded months ago courtesy youtube.com/huiyuforever)
Good advice from Andrada, but considering the fact that beyond just attendees, participants and officials of the games including News Corp photographer, Brett Costello was robbed of his photography and coverage gear worth $40,000 but thankfully nabbed the thief days later, only without his $40,000 gear (yet) and a Greek official who was also robbed of $11,000 worth of equipment and the refusal of his hotel management to release CCTV footage coupled with two Australian rowing coaches being robbed at knifepoint and an Australian team getting burgled during a fire evacuation in the athletes’ village; these thefts are one too many and all point to the fact that the International Olympic Committee need to demand better security (of life, property and data) for athletes everyone in Brazil and not keep mum over the host country subjecting visitors, officials and participants to a curfew and paranoia at every turn in the beautiful city of Rio.
