Commuters ready with dummy phones to fool bus ‘bandidos’

MEXICO CITY — Armed robberies have gotten so common aboard buses in Mexico City that commuters have come up with a clever if disheartening solution: Many are buying fake cell phones, to hand over to thieves instead of their real smartphones.

Costing P300 to P500 apiece — the equivalent of $15 to $25 — the “dummies” are sophisticated fakes: They have a startup screen and bodies that are dead ringers for the originals, and inside there is a piece of metal to give the phone the heft of the real article.

That comes in handy when trying to fool trigger-happy bandits who regularly attack the buses, big and small, that ferry people from the poorer outlying suburbs to jobs in the city center.

The scene is repeated over and over again, courtesy of the cameras that many buses now carry that record the assaults, often late at night or in the early morning: Sleepy passengers are seen bouncing along in the jitneys when one or two of the men aboard suddenly pull masks over their faces. One will pull out a gun while his accomplice passes down the aisle, often with his own gun, demanding valuables.

Daily muggings

Martha Patricia Rociles Estrada, a schoolteacher from the low-income suburb of Nezahualcoyotl, was robbed herself. Now, she says, most city residents make their daily commutes in fear. “Getting on public transportation is now a risk,” Rociles Estrada said. “You get on, but you never know if you’re going to return.”

There were an average of 70 reported violent muggings every day in Mexico City in the first four months of 2019. About two-thirds were committed against pedestrians, with the rest split almost evenly between bus passengers and assaults on motorists stopped at lights or caught in traffic jams.

‘Dummy’ vendors

With the advent of smartphones, many people now carry a device worth hundreds of dollars in their pocket, and one that may also hold their bank or credit card information.

That’s where “dummy” vendors like Axel come in. Axel says he sells three or four dummy phones a week out of his stall in a downtown electronics marketplace, next door to a colonial college building that dates to 1767.

Axel, who asked his full name not be used for fear police would accuse him of selling fake merchandise, said all of his customers knew they were buying fakes.

“It’s useful for robberies, the large number of muggings happening in Mexico City,” Axel said. “They say ‘hand over your cell phone, give me everything,’ and people know now they have to hand over the phone quick, in a matter of seconds, so they hand over these phones and often the thieves don’t realize it.”

But Axel admits the victim would be in trouble if a thief caught them handing over a “dummy” phone.   “Obviously there are problems, because if the criminals search it or find out … there is going to be a problem.”