That neither side is blameless and we are only getting portions of the truth from either.

is if there really was some kind of robbery or ripoff

If Lochte was carrying an appreciable amount of cash on his person, (i.e., anything over than say, $100 American) then he broke the first commandment of traveling in Rio

was one of the things that sounded fishy to the Brazilian authorities.

They wouldn't have left the passports or other ID behind, either. Those can be useful to people who need to leave the country quickly and anonymously. With only cash gone, it looks like they were told they had to pay for something.

These look like four drunk louts who thought affluenza was going to get them off the hook.

Ooops.

That was the first thing that caught Brazilians' attention.



"What disgusted me the most in this episode of the American swimmers was the fact they invented a story questioning the efficiency of Rio de Janeiro's thieves. Being robbed and coming back home with your wallet, watch, snickers, how come?? I felt insulted. Our robbers are among the best of the world!"

But the "robbers" did not take cell phones or Olympic credentials.

The story reeked to me from the first.

Do none of these people read *ANY* of the tourist guides or websites about Rio de Janeiro?

When I was there I had my wallet lifted, even though I knew all the warnings about people dumb enough to use wallets, and even though I thought I was watching it pretty closely that night -- Pickpockets *are* really that good...

My saving grace was that even I wasn't dumb enough to carry all my credit cards around the city all day, so the pickpocket only got one card, my driver's license and a prepaid phone card... The rest of the stuff I usually carry in my wallet was tucked away in the hotel safe.