Virtual Honey Trap
When people are lonely, they really, really want to believe that what they want to be real actually is. Loneliness and a big ego can be particularly dangerous.
Paul Frampton, a theoretical particle physicist and UNC professor in the physics and astronomy department, says he thought he was talking with a Czech bikini model. He's now in a Buenos Aires prison on drug smuggling charges. An excerpt from the fascinating New York Times Magazine piece by Maxine Swann:
Frampton had been very lonely since his divorce three years earlier; now it seemed those days were over. Milani told him she was longing to change her life. She was tired, she said, of being a "glamour model," of posing in her bikini on the beach while men ogled her. She wanted to settle down, have children. But she worried what he thought of her. "Do you think you could ever be proud of someone like me?" Of course he could, he assured her.Frampton tried to get Milani to talk on the phone, but she always demurred. When she finally agreed to meet him in person, she asked him to come to La Paz, Bolivia, where she was doing a photo shoot. On Jan. 7, 2012, Frampton set out for Bolivia via Toronto and Santiago, Chile. At 68, he dreamed of finding a wife to bear him children -- and what a wife. He pictured introducing her to his colleagues. One thing worried him, though. She had told him that men hit on her all the time. How did that acclaim affect her? Did it go to her head? But he remembered how comforting it felt to be chatting with her, like having a companion in the next room. And he knew she loved him. She'd said so many times.
Frampton didn't plan on a long trip. He needed to be back to teach. So he left his car at the airport. Soon, he hoped, he'd be returning with Milani on his arm. The first thing that went wrong was that the e-ticket Milani sent Frampton for the Toronto-Santiago leg of his journey turned out to be invalid, leaving him stranded in the Toronto airport for a full day. Frampton finally arrived in La Paz four days after he set out. He hoped to meet Milani the next morning, but by then she had been called away to another photo shoot in Brussels. She promised to send him a ticket to join her there, so Frampton, who had checked into the Eva Palace Hotel, worked on a physics paper while he waited for it to arrive. He and Milani kept in regular contact. A ticket to Buenos Aires eventually came, with the promise that another ticket to Brussels was on the way. All Milani asked was that Frampton do her a favor: bring her a bag that she had left in La Paz.
While in Bolivia, Frampton corresponded with an old friend, John Dixon, a physicist and lawyer who lives in Ontario. When Frampton explained what he was up to, Dixon became alarmed. His warnings to Frampton were unequivocal, Dixon told me not long ago, still clearly upset: "I said: 'Well, inside that suitcase sewn into the lining will be cocaine. You're in big trouble.' Paul said, 'I'll be careful, I'll make sure there isn't cocaine in there and if there is, I'll ask them to remove it.' I thought they were probably going to kidnap him and torture him to get his money. I didn't know he didn't have money. I said, 'Well, you're going to be killed, Paul, so whom should I contact when you disappear?' And he said, 'You can contact my brother and my former wife.' " Frampton later told me that he shrugged off Dixon's warnings about drugs as melodramatic, adding that he rarely pays attention to the opinions of others.
On the evening of Jan. 20, nine days after he arrived in Bolivia, a man Frampton describes as Hispanic but whom he didn't get a good look at handed him a bag out on the dark street in front of his hotel. Frampton was expecting to be given an Hermès or a Louis Vuitton, but the bag was an utterly commonplace black cloth suitcase with wheels. Once he was back in his room, he opened it. It was empty. He wrote to Milani, asking why this particular suitcase was so important. She told him it had "sentimental value." The next morning, he filled it with his dirty laundry and headed to the airport.
Frampton flew from La Paz to Buenos Aires, crossing the border without incident. He says that he spent the next 40 hours in Ezeiza airport, without sleeping, mainly "doing physics" and checking his e-mail regularly in hopes that an e-ticket to Brussels would arrive. But by the time the ticket materialized, Frampton had gotten a friend to send him a ticket to Raleigh. He had been gone for 15 days and was ready to go home. Because there was always the chance that Milani would come to North Carolina and want her bag, he checked two bags, his and hers, and went to the gate. Soon he heard his name called over the loudspeaker. He thought it must be for an upgrade to first class, but when he arrived at the airline counter, he was greeted by several policemen. Asked to identify his luggage -- "That's my bag," he said, "the other one's not my bag, but I checked it in" -- he waited while the police tested the contents of a package found in the "Milani" suitcase. Within hours, he was under arrest.
I'm trying to have some sympathy for this man, but I keep thinking, "How dumb can you get?"
I also don't mind adding, I consider it reprehensible to father children at 68.
Patrick at March 10, 2013 7:42 AM
For once I'm having to agree with Patrick. He was warned by a friend, and still didn't get it. True stupidity.
Jim P. at March 10, 2013 8:28 AM
Maybe he watched too much of "The Big Bang Theory" and thought he was like Leonard Hofstadter and actually had a chance with the cute blond next door.
I guess one could say that theory met reality in his case. So much for being a "smart" professor.
Charles at March 10, 2013 8:35 AM
intelligence vs wisdom
Jim Simon at March 10, 2013 8:54 AM
I interviewed once for a job where I'd be working with a great number of university-sorts.
I was filling in my family the day afterwards, at a brunch. 2 of my relatives at the table are PhDs and lecture(d) at universities.
"And they really liked how I had a fair bit of experience with dealing with PhD's," I said as the server approached with the after-meal coffee.
She explained that they'd just run out, and had a new pot brewing, but they just had the one cup at the moment.
I indicated that the eldest with us, a Economic PhD with over 30 years of University lecturing experience should take it.
"That's OK, I take mine black, I'll wait." he said.
I removed the sealed, single-serve creamer container from the saucer, and repeated my offer to him to take the coffee.
As he took it, I repeated, "As I was saying, they were really interested in my experience dealing with PhD's..."
Unix-Jedi at March 10, 2013 9:03 AM
In light of his texts and emails to "her" from the airport, I'd say there was more hubris than naiveté involved...as far as the drug smuggling. My favorite quote of the article: "As these days tick by, and I think about it a lot, the more I realize that we are the perfect couple in all respects.”
A 68-year-old physics professor and a 20-something bikini model the perfect couple in all respects. Now I've heard everything.
Lizzie at March 10, 2013 10:31 AM
The empty suitcase, her always being one town ahead of him, and the sheer improbability of it all should have been clues 1, 2, and 3.
However, in his defense, setting honey traps on dating sites using actual Czech bikini models seems like an awfully complicated way of recruiting unwitting drug mules.
Conan the Grammarian at March 10, 2013 11:25 AM
I bet he knew he was a drug mule, but thought he was doing it for the hot chick.
NicoleK at March 10, 2013 11:33 AM
Shit, I thought spending five hundred dollars on Ragbrai was expensive, and I'm riding my bike clear across the state. What a buncha pussies. Flights to Buenos Whatever. Whatever.
Pirate Jo at March 10, 2013 11:37 AM
Agree with Nicole. Guys will do anything for tail. Even though he brought him on himself, I still feel kinda sorry for him.
wtf at March 10, 2013 1:16 PM
> I'd say there was more hubris than naiveté
> involved...as far as the drug smuggling.
&
> I bet he knew he was a drug mule, but thought
> he was doing it for the hot chick.
'Zactly.
To Be Sures:
Nonetheless:To be that naive about pretty girls is supremely arrogant... He has to have avoided a lot of signals in his life for a lot of years, and was presumably ignoring them for his own benefit. No one has the right to be stupid. (See above, hubris vs. naiveté.) If he gets convicted for this, I won't feel as bad as for others who run afoul of law in other countries.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 10, 2013 5:27 PM
Nicole nailed it.
Grey Ghost at March 11, 2013 6:51 AM
I've been following this story for a while. (My first thought was "hey, maybe the physics and astronomy department will be hiring again.") There are enough odd, socially inept people in my field to make his behavior sound perfectly reasonable, though it seems obvious that he knew the drugs were in the bag.
What amused me was his claim (expanded upon in other articles) that he deserved to be paid by the University because he was continuing his research. The idea that his job also includes teaching and an actual physical presence in NC (faculty are not supposed to be absent during the semester for long periods without leave) didn't occur to him. I have colleagues like that. One was chastised by the dean for missing about 1/3 of his classes (he got his grad student to sub), but in his eyes he's about to bring in a $1B mission and that is what is important. I often wish I could wake up with half their self-confidence, but it's often clearly delusional, as was this guy's belief that a bikini model was into him.
Astra at March 11, 2013 7:19 AM
Agree with Nicole. Guys will do anything for tail. Even though he brought him on himself, I still feel kinda sorry for him.- wtf
Not anything, for what he paid on air fare and lodging he could hired a dozen hookers
lujlp at March 11, 2013 9:38 AM
This is what happens when you eschew the liberal arts and focus solely on math and science: no people smarts.
"Hmmm... I can solve complex mathematical problems and am therefore smarter than most everyone else ... I'm a professor, and therefore respected by all ... so this hot babe four decades younger than me just can't wait to be my next wife! Yeah. That's the ticket."
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at March 11, 2013 4:07 PM
In 1976 there was Frampton Comes Alive!
In 2013 there is Frampton Comes Unhinged!
JD at March 11, 2013 5:07 PM
Or even a single one on a regular basis to do the "girlfriend" experience. ;-)
Jim P. at March 11, 2013 9:12 PM
Leave a comment