The fears about rampant hooliganism and crime against those visiting the World Cup have largely been unrealized. It hasn’t been perfect and there have been reports of crime like a Moscow taxi driver running over Mexican fans and a couple English fans doing Nazi salutes and a fan vandalizing a Russian statue but it’s certainly been few and far between.
Regardless, there is still crime and Russian authorities detained two in connection to the drugging and robbery of a British reporter who is in Moscow covering the World Cup for the BBC.
Russian news outlet TASS reported that the man was given a cup of coffee at 3:30 AM early Friday morning and eventually found himself getting robbed of his belongings inside a taxi before losing consciousness. According to another Russian news outlet Interfax, translated by ESPN, the unnamed reporter eventually woke up in a metro station without his phone and bank cards. Police detained the taxi driver and one other person who police believe was an accomplice.
He wasn’t the only media member who was the target of a robbery. The Independent’s Miguel Delaney was robbed Saturday night. Delaney was fine but it seems like his phone was taken.
Got jumped and phone robbed last night – only bad experience I've had here, just a graze, and everyone very helpful since.
Temporarily had no access to twitter – for the best, says you, ha.
— Miguel Delaney (@MiguelDelaney) July 8, 2018
As the World Cup winds down, things have been going relatively well. But just because the first few weeks have been tolerable, doesn’t mean something can ruin this entering the final week.
