Strip club scams in Riga had been a thing of the past but it seems some new scammers have appeared on the scene to degrade Riga's reputation once again.
So what's the deal with this new Riga strip club scam?
To be honest we would first like to say we do not promote the idea of exploiting young women for money and the easiest way to avoid any trouble is to not participate in Riga's strip clubs in the first place. If you think money will buy you a women then the issue first begins in your own moral compass.
However, we understand that in particular, groups of men visiting Riga on stag parties or lads weekends may feel that visiting "Eastern Europe" means attractive, cheap, easy women. The reality is that strip clubs in Riga have a history of being either grossly overpriced where women order bottles of wine and sit at your table only for you to be presented with a huge bill at the end of your visit. Another approach, strip clubs in Riga would simply extort money from you with one of two options, pay or get beaten. With all this bad press over the last 20 years we were amazed to hear in 2023 that a particularly horrific scam took place just last weekend.
A group of tourists out in Old Riga at a nightclub (why anyone would go out for a night in Old Riga is beyond us) were approached by some men who offered them a better place to party at a strip club in Riga.
At this point it is clear the group have been targeted as they were seen as having money and already drinking. It's possible someone has seen them pay already with bills or just measured them from where they stay and how they present themselves.
Following these men into a vehicle after probably being told they will need cash to pay at the club they were driven only some 10-15 mins to a private housing district. Led into a basement where it turned out there was an underground strip club.
What happened inside I never found out but I imagine a disappointing and miserable attempt at erotic dancing took place. Until now the group seems to have not had any issues until they decided to return to Old Riga. And I wonder if at this point when they told their drivers which hotel they stayed in that maybe rhe crooks weighed up on how wealthy the guys are. I mean if you stay in some dive hostel probably you have little cash but high end hotels you are sending signals of being cash rich.
Their drivers it seems then drove them somewhere abandoned. Got them all out of the vehicle and upon threatening them forced them to hand over their money and wallets before leaving them in an unknown location.
To be honest i was shocked this took place in 2023 and apparently after contacting the Police they had no luck in reporting the crime (whether this was true or they were simply eager to get a report to cliam insurance on I cant say). Can you imagine though going to the police and stating you willingly got into a vehicle and drove to an unknown underground strip club where you were then forced to hand over all your money. Without any information on the location or vehicles you were driving in. I cannot imagine the police would take the matter that seriously sadly.
So how to avoid strip club scams in Riga?
Don't visit them! These businesses are not nice family run mum and pa bars. They are run by people who take advantage of both women and testosterone fuelled men's sexual desires. And with the case of this group of men we heard of, the men who hustled them into the cars and robbed them were most likely involved with the strip club at least in terms of getting a commission to bring them to the strip club. In the end they must have seen the group as easy pickings and decided to just to rob them instead.
Riga is a safe city as long as you do not put yourself in stupid and dangerous situations like these guys did. The sad part is bad news travels faster and further than good news and Riga's reputation has been tarnished again by men and their desires to look at naked women.
I only got some of this information and i tried to contact the group directly for names of the strip club but they had no idea. I aslo wondered how the police report went as in Riga there is a special tourist police who are tasked to deal with this. I will be speaking to some one in the city tourism office this week to see what can we do to prevent such events and if you have trouble in Riga please use the Riga tourism police contact below.
Emergency numbers in Latvia
Emergency medical assistance 113
Fire and rescue service 112
Police 110
Tourist Police +371 67181818