From the Wall Street Journal, July 28:
The Criminal Enterprise Run by Monkeys
A cabal of furry thieves snatch iPhones and other valuables from visitors to a temple in Bali—and trade them for mangos
PECATU, Indonesia—At a cliff-side temple on the tropical island of Bali, an unexpected group of criminals is running one of the world’s most sophisticated scam operations.
Every week, they steal dozens of phones, wallets and other valuables from tourists in broad daylight and exchange them for handsome rewards. It’s been going on for decades and nobody’s been able to stop it.
The culprits? Long-tailed macaques.
“The monkeys have taken over the temple,” said Jonathan Hammé, a tourist from London whose sunglasses were stolen by a monkey during a visit last year. “They’re running a scam.”
On the southern tip of the Indonesian vacation hot spot known for its beaches, tourists flock to Uluwatu Temple for traditional fire dance shows and panoramic views at sunset with the Indian Ocean crashing below. The Balinese Hindu site dates back to at least the 11th century and the roughly 600 monkeys that inhabit it are considered by locals to be sacred guardians of the temple.
Primate researchers have found that the macaques steal belongings to use as currency to trade with humans for food. Some monkeys can distinguish between objects we highly value (smartphones, prescription glasses, wallets) and those we don’t (hats, flip flops, hair clips)—and will barter accordingly, according to a University of Lethbridge team that spent years filming the macaques and analyzing hundreds of hours of footage.
In other words, the monkeys have “unprecedented economic decision-making processes,” the researchers wrote in a 2021 academic paper. Talk about monkey business.
When Hammé arrived at the temple with his wife, his tour guide handed him a stick, saying he would need it to fend off the monkeys.
“I said, ‘What do you mean?’” recalled Hammé, 64. “I thought he was giving me a stick because he thought I was too old.”
The stick was no use. While Hammé was admiring the vista, a monkey jumped on his back, snatched his favorite sunglasses off his face and vanished.
He found it in a tree playing with his sunglasses. A different tour guide handed him some Oreos and Hammé waved the cookies at the thief. It jumped down, grabbed the Oreos and tossed the sunglasses. They were bent.
“I didn’t expect that the monkeys would be operating like a gang taking everything,” he said. “It was like—have you seen ‘Oliver Twist’?”
Many cases require the help of the temple’s monkey handlers, called “pawang,” who negotiate with the furry hostage-takers. They offer fruits such as bananas, mangos, rambutan and mangosteen in exchange for the stolen items. In rare cases, they use raw chicken eggs, highly coveted by the monkeys.
Ketut Ariana, a 52-year-old who has been working for the temple as a monkey handler for two decades, said the animals steal dozens of items a week, including five to 10 smartphones a day....
....MUCH MORE, including video of the miscreants in action.