Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Who remembers Gypsies in your neighborhood ??

There are a few in Western Mass., Springfield area. They are a little more settled, women reading palms, men buying and selling. When I worked at the RV dealership they would come around buying up the old junk trailers we wouldn't put on the lot.They were pretty sharp, packaging 3 or 4 units, averaging the total then trying to take the best one at the low price. Some were pretty good customers, tax numbers, wholesale licence, and always paid cash. The most common last name was "Mitchell", they would all talk among themselves in that Rom language. There were some shady ones we had to watch, and a couple times we were close to a 911 call but they wanted nothing to do with the law and split. There is a hierarchies among them.
They would fix up these junkers and sell them cheap off the front yard of these two and three family houses where they lived. People would buy them from "Tony" but they were stuck for any problems as "Tony" could never be found again.

I lived in a military housing complex off base outside of Madrid growing up. Bonafide OG gypsies lived in a makeshift camp outside the housing area. If you left your bike or skateboard out on the porch or your laundry drying on the clothesline in the yard overnight it would be gone in the morning. They stole my moms moped that was chained to the porch. Saw a Gypsie riding it on the dirt road on the other side of the fence when I was on the playground at school.

There are a lot of them in Spain. They still will aggressively try to read your palms and other ways to swindle you out of your money at the tourist spots or outside of the Cathedrals. Nowadays they live in their own apartment buildings in their own barrios. When I was a kid they lived in makeshift camps along the rivers and dumps. Genetically they descend from people who came from India/Pakistan after having settled in Romania originally.

This. We had them come through once in a great while and distract someone at the front door while an accomplis went through the back door and ransacked the house from behind.

kwg

They come through the area I live, NE AL/SE TN/NW GA every couple of years. They do the gravel/asphalt on driveway stuff. They've stopped and asked us a couple of times over the years but I wasn't interested. I was surprised that my parents let them do theirs. I don't know what they charged but they did a pretty good job. It was a existing gravel drive and circle drive through the back yard that was already well defined with the gravel packed pretty hard and set up to drain well. I imagine it was a pretty easy job for them since it was already the perfect starting point. At any rate, it still looks good after several years and my parents are happy with it.

i-20 exit 5 in SC....murphy village.......they have many mansions there.....

I don't recall every seeing any.

Travelers go WAY back. I have read of them being called Tinkerers in 1700's Scotland. A group of them actually kidnapped Adam Smith when he was 3. Yes, the Adam Smith, the Father of Economics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Gypsy_and_Traveller_groups#Indigenous_Highland_Travellers

Gypsy should more accurately refers to Romani

Neither were highly thought of

Unbeknownst to me, I had one as an insurance client, back in the mid-90's.

Plain looking man and woman come into my office for auto insurance, on a brand new F-150. A week later, she calls to add a brand new GMC truck. A week or 2 after that, she calls to add a brand new Cadillac Escalade. For the next 3-4 months, I don't hear from them at all.

Then, she calls one day and files a claim. Her son in California (we are in Colorado) rear-ended a 1969 Buick Electra 225, and possibly injured someone in the Buick. She is very apologetic, says the son is at-fault and 'to go ahead and pay the claim'. A week later, she calls again and says the same son has rear-ended a Datsun B210, and possibly injured the driver of the Datsun, and, of course, 'to go ahead and pay the claim". A few days after the 2nd claim, the same son rear-ends another old car, and the same story from Mom.

In the meantime, I get a call from an investigator with GMAC, asking about her. The investigator said this woman goes by at least 7 alias'. The women belongs to The Travelers, and had befriended an older widowed man just up the street from me, and he co-signed for all these new cars.

The investigator told me that these people lease a new car, make the insurance and lease payments for 4-5 months, then report the car stolen. A year later, one of them goes into a DMV in California and says they have had an abandoned car on their property for a year, and they want the title to it, and California then issues a title for the 'abandoned' car. So, for the cost of 4-5 months of lease and insurance payments, they get a free and clear California title on almost new cars/trucks.

There was a lot more information about these people that the investigator shared with me, from the used motor oil roofing scam to talking old people into signing over real estate to them.

The Irish gypsies are called Travelers and live in in Murphy Village SC, just across the river from Augusta Ga. They drive around the country doing driveway and roofing repair scams.

I have visited Murphy Village and it is something else. Probably 300 houses in there and they are very big, and expensive. And most have a Catholic shrine in the yard, there might be a 6 foot tall statue of Virgin Mary.


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The houses are large and costly but they look weird, like the Travelers don't trust architects and just design the houses themselves.


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There will be 2 or three new vehicles in every driveway, always a shiny new pickup, for hauling around those 5 gallon buckets of asphalt and paint, and there may also be a new Cadillac. Not unusual to see $150K worth of wheels in a driveway. These Irish criminals make a lot of money.

They only marry within their community and they often marry cousins. Not unusual for a 14 year old Traveler girl to marry her 17 year old cousin.
These Irish criminals don't like to "work" in cold weather, but, you may live in Indiana, if you see this summer some guys locked up for cheating a widow out of $5 grand on a driveway scam, they are probably Travelers from South Carolina. Sherlock and Gorman are common family names.

I see they are moving in to white collar crimes.

Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2017

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) -- An additional 24 Irish Traveler defendants from Murphy Village plead guilty to criminal conspiracy to commit racketeering.

According to S.C. Attorney General Beth Drake's office, the group all entered guilty pleas in a Columbia courtroom.

The accused defendants include John U. Carroll, Ann Carroll, Courtney Carroll, Jay G. Carroll, Mary C. Carroll, Mary Rita Carroll, Ralph Carroll, Mary Gorman, Tina Gorman, Thomas Martin Mack, Rachel McNally, Billy O'Hara, Jim O'Hara, Winnie O'Hara, Hugh Riley, Melissa Riley, Tracy Riley, Betty Sherlock, M. Lisa Carroll Sherlock, Michael P. Sherlock, Patricia Sherlock, Patrick Sherlock, Sandra Sherlock, and Ann F. Sherlock.

Federal Judge J. Michelle Childs accepted their pleas and will impose sentences after she has reviewed the presentence reports prepared by the U.S. Probation Office.

All 24 were a part of multiple criminal activities including mail and wire fraud, lying on loan applications, and scamming government benefits like food stamps and Medicaid.

This is the second group of travelers to take a guilty plea this year, bringing the total to nearly 50 travelers convicted.

The first group pleaded guilty to racketeering in a similar scheme involving rolling back odometers when trading or selling their vehicles.

The federal investigation has been going on for years involving multiple local, state, and federal agencies.

Each defendant faces up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.