A Canadian IT specialist working in Malta says he was scammed out of over €10,000 during a long night of drinking with working girls in a Paceville strip club. “It is extremely difficult for me to come forward with this due to the trauma I feel. I believe I was drugged and coerced to either reveal my credit card pin numbers or to make outrageous €1,000 purchases and ATM cash withdrawals,” Bern told Lovin Malta from Barcelona. Bern did not expect to be calling his wife on the eve of their 15-year-anniversary to explain that he’d cancelled their credit cards because they had been maxed out in a strip club. And when he tried to file a police report about the incident, he was told to he could face up to two years in prison if he was found to be lying. Now, he wants to share his story in the hopes that he is the last person that ever goes through such an experience. “On Monday night, I left Malta to go to Spain to meet my wife for our 15th wedding anniversary, which is on November 6th,” Bern said. He had come to Malta to help his company physically move items into their new office before embarking on a two week holiday with his wife. However, he’s been severely hit financially after paying for a night out on the town. “We were supposed to have a nice vacation for two weeks. Instead, it was a very traumatic event for both of us,” he said. “I am full of mixed emotions, from anger, to depression, to sheer sadness that such a thing could happen to me. I also reflected and realised I was extremely lucky to be unhurt.”

Strip club signage, photo via Wikipedia Commons

The night of Saturday, 2nd November started innocently enough for Bern and his friend. After pre-drinking at their AirBnB, they bussed it to St Julian’s and hit up some bars there. After two or three drinks, they walked up the hill and were approached by some girls. Though they weren’t planning on going to a gentleman’s club, they accepted the girls’ invitation and followed them into their club. The girls split up the two men, taking them to separate booths. “There were two or three girls at my booth, Romanian and Moldovan, and they asked me to buy them drinks,” Bern recounts. “I said ‘OK’ and they brought back shooters. I remember paying for this with my Apple Pay and we were having conversations.” “It was at this point where my memory starts getting hazy and I’m not sure what actually occurred and in which order, but this is my best recollection of the night.”

Paceville

“They asked me to buy them more drinks.” “I don’t remember saying yes but I must have because they brought more,” Bern continues. “I remember feeling really drunk and at one point started refusing to drink. I remember they were forcing the shot glass in front of my mouth and I guess I eventually gave up and took the drink. Still much of a blur around this time. I remember I felt really nauseous and all of a sudden had to throw up.” When he began vomiting, the staff took him to the bathroom. “In the stall I puked as much as I could and I knew I had had way too much, so after puking I sat on the toilet, put my head down and closed my eyes. I don’t know how long I was there, but eventually the bouncers started coming in and knocking and checking on me. I didn’t respond because I wanted to sober up.” “I remember someone putting a wet towel on the back of my neck but I don’t know for how long.” After a while, the bouncers started knocking again. “This time they were yelling at me, telling me I needed to get out of the bathroom for whatever reasons. They started to push the stall door and it was pushing against my head. As they kept pushing and it kept hitting my head, I finally had enough and I gave it a really hard push back. This broke the top half of the stall door and I opened my eyes and I saw several huge bouncers yelling at me,” he said. After the bathroom stall door broke, the bouncers really wanted him out. “The stall door was closed, but since the top half of it broke off I can see them all, with the door separating us. I was pissed and didn’t care how big and angry they were. I told them ‘hey! I’m drunk and I just want to sober up! So just let me go ahead and do that’.” “They kept saying I needed to get out of there, and I finally said ‘go call the police’.” Eventually, a police officer showed up. “The bouncers and officer started talking to each other in Maltese and at one point the officer said to them ‘no’, then he pointed to me, said ‘you – get out of here’. So I let them escort me out of the place and walked up the hill to Burger King.” “At this point, I still felt extremely drunk but was somewhat aware of what was going on around me.” Bern wanted to go home, so he texted his friend, who was still in the club “having a good time with the girl he was with.” Eventually he told him to leave without him, so Bern went to order a taxi, but he was fading in and out of awareness. “I ended up just sitting by Burger King and I guess the taxi came and left,” he said. “So at this point, I decided to check my credit card balance on my phone. I noticed a charge of over $1,400 in Canadian dollars, and another charge of around $599. I checked inside my wallet and noticed that the 80 euros I had in there was gone. One of my credit cards was also not in the usual spot in my wallet.” “And I remember thinking that these guys scammed me!” Down over $2,000, Bern looked for the police officer who had escorted him out of the club. “I told him that those guys scammed me on my credit card and took my cash. He asked me what I wanted him to do about it and I said I wanted him to get it back for me. He appeared reluctant but ended up going. I didn’t keep track of which direction he went so I don’t know if he really did go, but after a while he came back and told me that no, they didn’t have it,” he said.

Bern