Sammy the Las Galeras Con Man.

Warning to Visitors to Las Galeras


Las Galeras is still small enough that the few "bad cats" on the street taking advantage of visitors are easy to know after a couple of days. The usual game is getting money up front for an excursion that never happens.

One fellow you are well advised not to deal with is called Sammy. He is an older slim built man. Recently visitors paid him money for two nights at a hotel that he doesn't own! Lucky for them, the hotel owner did end up letting them stay there for no extra charge. (No doubt better controls to avoid this have now been put in place.)

There is no end to the ways Sammy has been able to extract money from people and some are rather ingenious and some are nasty. So best just to avoid him. He normally waits for the guagua to arrive at the crossroads and makes his approach before you can get your bearings.

Another game that is played is to tell tourists the place they want to go is closed and than they take you to a place where they receive a commission. Best to check that sort of information with someone else before you believe it.

In a small village, people will hesitate to "rat" on each other. If you are in doubt just stay around the crossroads for 20 minutes and you are sure to see a gringo you can confer with. (a fellow that looks like Santa often sits in Gri Gri's bar on the crossroad and he's a decent bet for straight information in English.)

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PS:Sammy is Dominican and he is tall and rather thin for a Dominican. I would say medium brown in skin tone. He will offer to get you virtually anything. His command of English is not great.There are really so few touts in Las Galeras that people should be able to identify him if they have a head's up.

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