The Criminal Enterprise Run by Monkeys

Hindustan Times

29-07-2025

PECATU, Indonesia—At a cliffside temple on the tropical island of Bali, an unexpected group of criminals is running one of the world's most sophisticated scam operations.
Every week, they steal dozens of phones, wallets and other valuables from tourists in broad daylight and exchange them for handsome rewards. It's been going on for decades and nobody's been able to stop it.
The culprits? Long-tailed macaques.
'The monkeys have taken over the temple,' said Jonathan Hammé, a tourist from London whose sunglasses were stolen by a monkey during a visit last year. 'They're running a scam.'
A monkey waits for a chance to steal from tourists. The long-tailed macaques have been swiping peoples' valuables for decades.
On the southern tip of the Indonesian vacation hotspot known for its beaches, tourists flock to Uluwatu Temple for traditional fire dance shows and panoramic views at sunset with the Indian Ocean crashing below. The Balinese Hindu site dates back to at least the 11th century and the roughly 600 monkeys that inhabit it are considered by locals to be sacred guardians of the temple.
Primate researchers have found that the macaques steal belongings to use as currency to trade with humans for food. Some monkeys can distinguish between objects we highly value (smartphones, prescription glasses, wallets) and those we don't (hats, flip flops, hair clips)—and will barter accordingly, according to a University of Lethbridge team that spent years filming the macaques and analyzing hundreds of hours of footage.
In other words, the monkeys have 'unprecedented economic decision-making processes,' the researchers wrote in a 2021 academic paper. Talk about monkey business.
A monkey snatches a prescription glasses from a tourist.A temple worker successfully negotiates for a pair of glasses.
When Hammé arrived at the temple with his wife, his tour guide handed him a stick, saying he would need it to fend off the monkeys.
'I said, 'What do you mean?'' recalled Hammé, 64. 'I thought he was giving me a stick because he thought I was too old.'
The stick was no use. While Hammé was admiring the vista, a monkey jumped on his back, snatched his favorite sunglasses off his face and vanished.
He found it in a tree playing with his sunglasses. A different tour guide handed him some Oreos and Hammé waved the cookies at the thief. It jumped down, grabbed the Oreos and tossed the sunglasses. They were bent.
'I didn't expect that the monkeys would be operating like a gang taking everything,' he said. 'It was like—have you seen 'Oliver Twist'?'
Many cases require the help of the temple's monkey handlers, called 'pawang,' who negotiate with the furry hostage-takers. They offer fruits such as bananas, mangos, rambutan and mangosteen in exchange for the stolen items. In rare cases, they use raw chicken eggs, highly coveted by the monkeys.
Ketut Ariana, a 52-year-old who has been working for the temple as a monkey handler for two decades, said the animals steal dozens of items a week, including five to 10 smartphones a day.
Kadek Ari Astawa, who coordinates the monkey handlers, emerges from the bushes after retrieving a stolen smartphone.
One of those victims was Taylor Utley, 36, from Louisville, Ky., who visited Uluwatu Temple last year on a wellness retreat for women. While she was walking along the cliff, a monkey grabbed her phone out of her hand and hopped onto the ledge of a barrier separating the walkway from the cliff's edge. She searched her bag for anything that could catch the monkey's eye. It wasn't interested in her scarf, so it began to scurry further down the ledge.
That's when a handler tossed the monkey a bag of fruit. The monkey held onto the phone. The handler gave it another bag, then another, and another. Finally, when the monkey couldn't hold all the fruit, it dropped the phone.
Utley was relieved, but she and the other women had enough. They left without seeing the fire dance show.
'I was taken aback,' she said. 'It's like a criminal enterprise of monkeys.'
There are different theories of when and how the stealing began. Ariana, the monkey handler, said the theft predates tourists. They used to steal jewelry from people who came for religious ceremonies. Now, they steal glasses and smartphones.
'It truly gives me a headache,' he said.
Tourists flock to Uluwatu Temple in Bali in part for its panoramic views.The traditional fire dance show is also a big draw. A monkey holds a hair scrunchie.
Kadek Ari Astawa, who coordinates the monkey handlers, said he heard that when the site first opened to tourism, visitors sometimes fed the monkeys. When temple management started feeding them a regular diet and forbade tourists from giving them food, the monkeys began to steal visitors' belongings.
Astawa said the temple has tried many methods to attempt to curb the stealing: different feeding schedules (from three to six times a day) and different food at the regular feedings (corn, sweet potato, mangos and other options). But the robbing behavior continues.
The monkeys are also known to steal just for fun.
I found that out first hand on a visit to the temple earlier this year when a monkey grabbed my iPhone out of my hand and leapt into the vegetation on the edge of the cliff.
I pictured the monkey chucking my phone into the ocean and tried not to cry. A passerby fetched a handler who climbed over the barrier at the cliff's edge in search of the robber. Silently, I made a plea to the universe, promising to do good deeds if I got my phone back.
What followed was more than an hour of hide-and-seek. Again and again the handler would spot the monkey, only to watch it scurry away when he got too close. The handler called for backup. The backup called for backup. The monkey scaled a tree, leapt onto another tree, jumped back onto the side of the cliff and disappeared. At one point I saw it gnawing on my phone.
As it was getting dark, my thief reappeared and the three handlers surrounded it. I couldn't see exactly how but they got my phone back and returned it to me with a chunk of the glass back missing. I tucked it in my bag and zipped it shut.
When I looked through my phone later, I saw the monkey had taken some photos.
A photograph taken by one of the thieves themselves.
Write to Hannah Miao at [e-mail]
The Criminal Enterprise Run by Monkeys
The Criminal Enterprise Run by Monkeys
The Criminal Enterprise Run by Monkeys
The Criminal Enterprise Run by Monkeys
The Criminal Enterprise Run by Monkeys
The Criminal Enterprise Run by Monkeys
The Criminal Enterprise Run by Monkeys