Snatching Incident At KLCC Photography Spot

On the 11th July 2008 I was receiving a China group from the Second Link. The following is their itinerary:

11th July 2008 2nd Link to Genting Highlands ( First World Hotel )
12th July 2008 Genting Highlands to Kuala Lumpur ( Maluri Hotel )
13th July 2008 Kuala Lumpur to Johor Bahru ( Pulai Spring )
14th July 2008 Johor Bahru to Singapore.

Due to the weekend, my group is arranged as such that they are staying in Genting Highlands on the first night. So, I arranged as such that I will try to finish my city tour on the second day. However, I could not finish off the city tour and decided to leave the KLCC and Chocolate Beryls on the 3rd day.

On the 3rd day, we checked out from the Maluri Hotel at 8.00am and heading towards KLCC. We reached the photography spot for the KLCC at the traffic light junction at about 8.40am.

So, all the tourists were busy having their photography session. A mother and son who do not like photography were standing near to the traffic light. I was standing about 50m away from them.

Suddenly I heard a loud thudding sound. I turned my back and saw a motorcyclist snatched the handbag of my tourist who was standing near the traffic light. Because of the snatching, my tourist fell down on to the road and she was pulling and clinging on to her handbag. The motorbike was dragging my tourist who is on the road for about 30m. I immediately run towards the incident and shouted. The snatcher turned back and saw the tourist pulling on the handbag. Upon seeing this, he did not give up but speed off. My tourist was still pulling on the handbag and did not want to give up too. But after dragging it for further 50m, finally my tourist gave up.

I immediately run towards her. She is at the middle of the road at the traffic junction. It is very lucky that there is no vehicle at the junction at that time. I helped her to stand up and asked her if she is hurt and lost her passport. Fortunately, she is not badly hurt and left her passport in her luggage.

I took her to the police station at the Malaysia Tourists Information Centre ( MATTIC ) to lodge a report. Then I brought her to a clinic at Jalan Raja Laut for a medical check up.

From this incident, I learnt my lesson well that if we take our group for photography session early in the morning ( especially on Sundays or public holidays ), we should be extra cautious because it is generally very quiet and very few vehicle. So, incident like this can easily happen.

It is very fortunate that its been my habit to advice my tourists to always keep their passport in the luggage or in their pocket and not in the handbag.

From the incident, the guest lost all her money which amounts to about RM3000.00. Here, again I learned my lesson that in the future I must also advice my tourists to divide and place their money in different parts. So, if the incident occurred, the tourists won’t lost all the money.

From time to time, snatchings happened. Malaysians have been very, very angry for the peaceful of the country has deteriorated terribly. When snatching happened, this has tarnished our country’s reputation terribly. It is my personal hope that our government will put in more effort to demolish this menace.

I was told by lots of foreign tourists that in their country, motorcycles are not allowed to go into the city at all and also in the highways. The main reason is to prevent snatching and pollution.