Mystery: LOTS of Luggage Scattered in Paris!

While living in various parts of Europe I noticed that people in cities tend to use luggage with wheels as a means of carrying their shopping. For people that don't have cars and use public transportation, buses and the tube/metro, a luggage case with wheels is the easiest way to get stuff around.
So it could be stuff stolen from other people.
I swear the thieves in London would steal your shadow if you stood still long enough.

You guys came up with a lot of great theories! They're all pretty plausible, but I think the Parisian vampire scenario is the most probable . Haha, seriously though, I think idea of a discarded lost and found from a hotel is pretty likely. The northernmost spot I indicated is very close to at least one hotel.

I wonder, too, if a lot of it came from the market itself. Maybe people had stuff they couldn't sell and just left it? I'm pretty sure it's a once-per-week market, so it goes up and comes down pretty fast.

Someone mentioned that many people use these bags as a means of transporting materials too, so they could be the "shopping carts" of Paris.

I don't feel like it has anything to do with human trafficking (I hope not!), but as someone else mentioned, it would be a good way to quickly get rid of excess items that you don't want tied to you. It's kind of like in Lord of War, when Interpol was on to their gun smuggling so they landed their plane and gave everything away to the locals, clearing out all their supplies in minutes.

There's also a bus station near these spots that is a huge hub. Just about any bus in and out of France goes through this station, and it's the arrival station for a lot of buses from the U.K. The same building is also a Metro station that connects the area to the rest of Paris. A lot of gypsies hang out around this hub, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was all stolen from transients passing through.

Whatever the case, we will probably never really know. I just thought it was interesting and you guys might enjoy a little mystery to start off the new year.

I don't know if your still in the area where the mystery luggage drop is happening
but...

If you really wanna find out... call one of the people whose name you see on the
personal luggage tag. If they have a phone and or address listed, you should be
able to find them. Ask them directly to see if they had lost luggage and what
they were being told as to what happened with it.

leolady

maybe young females are being scooped up to be put in white slavery by one of the groups in area and when they get a certain amount of luggage ie evidence they dump it ub the street at night knowing street people will pick it clean . now yu say no way news people will be all over this not so most of the countries in world don;t five a crap what happens to foreign tourists usually young women who disappear are considered runaways when their families ask questions. and yes white slavery is a very real thing not just a plot of a liam neson movie.

A very interesting and mysterious and well-presented thread...
The idea others came up with also occurred to me - the next thing I'd check, if based on their abandoned luggage, these "passengers" could be likely young and/or female, we could be talking about white slavery. The receiving compound may be right there in the Algerian/Moroccan neighborhood, though it is less likely. It's been a while I was in Paris last time so I don't know these places well enough but I assume the locals are less likely to use white slavery. Could be living in families, and/or poor and/or religious, so the place could simply be used for dumping b/c there is less supervision as you said.

However, if the ladies' shoes were just loose in the fence, the lady they used to belong to may not be far...

What do you think about the nationality or the likely place of origin of the "owners"?
Did you see any Cyrillic writing or other characters? Or any non-Latin characters?

There are organized cheaters ripping off people's passports etc. all across Eastern Europe (including here); large Western cities are favorite destinations.

However, such people would probably not have iPods... and/or their kidnappers would most likely clean out everything...

They could be exported to a third place.

reply to post by ValerieDivusen


This is a very strange but neat post, thanks for sharing your info and I am glad your living conditions have improved!
Going to watch this thread, it has my attention!
S & F

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite


Your response terrifies me more than you can know. While hopefully the real reason is much more mundane, (granted, I can't think of what it would be) the possibility that it could be human trafficking under the guise of a legit transportation service really is terrifying.

Add that to my list of strange fears and phobias now. I'll never call a taxi when drunk again.

Kokatsi
Did you see any Cyrillic writing or other characters? Or any non-Latin characters?

No. I looked at letters/postcards from maybe a dozen different bags and every single one was in French. I kind of wish I had kept something now, but that period of my life was full of so many strange experiences that I didn't think much of it at the time. Only now, in hindsight, have I realized just how bizarre it was.

I still don't know if this is even a reoccurring phenomenon. Any spots I found, once picked clean, were never replenished during my time there, and the Google Maps images show no trace at all.

reply to post by ValerieDivusen


Very Mysterious! I am with those in that I believe it could be evidence of Human Trafficking. Sorry, but that's how I see it....... Syx.

If this was steling, then they would have taken the Ipods and valubels.
so they must have been after the humans?

one esample could be,
the drug companys need ginepigs to test new drugs or GMO on.

some one messt up.
they should have buerid it all.

if you Ever travle,
make shure people KNOW ware you are going and keep in contact.
make them your next of kin.
and will Look for you if you dont get in contact.
and call the police.

the goverment keep secret the number of people who disepear.
how would you know how many people disepear?
you would NOT!

reply to post by buddha


I think your near some airport repository for luggage and insurance claims. They hold that crap for so long before they can dump it. Lots of poverty and transients? What better way then dump it on street but if you collect enough personal data and photos you could sell it to a form for a class action law suit for exposing peoples personal like that and risking personal attacks, identity theft and some fat guy wearing your wife's undies! I'd totally sue.

I truly hope you guys are wrong about human trafficking. I don't want to imagine that there are people in captivity that I could have helped had I only held on to their information as a means to investigate. If I ever come across something like this again I will certainly be more assertive!

you'd think an industrial shredder would be more handy to dispose of any evidence if this was nefarious.

and an employee would at least take valuables before getting rid of excess baggage being held.


truly a mystery

reply to post by ninepointfive


I lived in Paris for decades and there are 2 possibilities here. One is that some unscrupulous lost and found storage places are emptied out because filling in the paperwork is just too much of a hassle. Most papaerwork in France is a pain in the arse! The other is that there is SO MUCH theft in railway stations, the Metro and the airports that some may take the little they want and leave the rest.

Gallieni isn't strictly speaking in the banlieu. It's still what they call intra-muros and isn't too far from the Gare du Nord and Gare de l'Est area which is renouned for such pilfering. I hope that can help you. Also north-east Paris has long been inhabited by north african immigrants and french born north africans alike and is, by the way, a great place to eat and see markets. You just need to remain as vigilant as anywhere else to enjoy it!

The probabilty of trafficking is also high but likely not in the numbers you are seeing there. Could be some other decoys too.

reply to post by Alien44


Thank you for that analysis! It's good to hear from someone who knows the areas well. As I said, I was only there for a short time so I'm no authority on the matter. The possibilities you presented make a lot of sense.

Also, I agree that it was a cool place to see markets and such! I didn't mean to paint a negative picture of the area as a whole. Most of the people I met were very good people.

Maybe some crazy stuff like Taken is happening. Maybe Taken was an outcry?

paradisepurple
I wonder if there is a very well-organised crime ring operating at one of the airports in Paris?

CDG is one of the world's busiest airports and handled over 47 million passengers last year. Even though on average less than 8 out of 1000 passengers report the permanent loss of their luggage, grabbing a couple of bags here and there from different flights would add up to a lot of luggage....

Maybe once the thieves have searched for any particularly high-value items the luggage gets discarded in the lowest income parts of the city, kind of in a Robin Hood gesture?

My money is here...
the 1st lines of the above quote is your answer........

AirCraft do not dump luggage in flight
you can't open cargo doors from the flight-deck
and the only time they dump fuel is when they are making an emergency landing.



they do not dump their lavatory's inflight either
the peanuts the giveaway