Homeland Security Is Not So Obliging

Juan Carlos Guzman-Betancourt found it easy to convince the front desk staff at high-end hotels that he was a guest who had lost his keys or couldn't seem to recall the combination to the lock. They were happy to oblige him and open the door to the room safe. He was happy to steal what he could and be on his way.

Mr. Guzman-Betancourt is a con man and a thief who escaped from a British minimum security jail by convincing his guard that he had a dentist's appointment. He took his trade to Ireland, where he served time for stealing jewelry and cash from a room at the Merrion Hotel in Dublin.

France wanted the peripatetic criminal, and Dublin was happy to oblige. The thief was extradited at the end of 2006 and somehow he managed to disappear.

Like so many earnest young men before him, he headed west where he plied his craft in the U.S., lifting credit cards and doing the odd bit of theft in Virginia and Florida.

His attempt to visit Canada, however, was his undoing. The good folks at Homeland Security are on high alert, what with the foiled attempt to blow up innocent people in the New York City subway system. They're not particularly likely to fall for a sob story.

Sure he just wandered over the border by accident when his car broke down. In Quebec. And he walked all the way to Vermont. To find a gas station.

A man described as an accomplished liar by Scotland Yard didn't manage to come up with a convincing story for the U.S. Border Patrol. No matter what smooth words he used, if he didn't appear to have walked for a great distance, no Border Patrol agent would fall for his con, especially in light of the current state of alert.

It's all in the timing, and Juan Carlos was nabbed in a case of seriously bad timing. Ten years of hard work and studied effort, down the drain. It's unlikely he'll find himself in a minimum security prison in the U.S., and it's doubtful that he'll be allowed to visit the dentist without an armed escort.

There's a long list of countries that would like Mr. Guzman-Betancourt to visit their prisons. Unless he can come up with a brilliant new strategy to give his jailers the slip, he could be flying Con-Air and not first-class in his future travels.