
Scam City: Jerusalem
Conor Woodman spends his time in Jerusalem tracking the con artists who work the city's holiest ground. At the Western Wall he finds men posing as religious authorities who charge tourists for blessings and photographs, while pickpockets work the crowds moving through the Mount of Olives. In the souvenir markets and antiquities shops of the Old City, Woodman goes undercover to see how easily shopkeepers pass off modern trinkets as relics from the time of Jesus, and how much a believer will pay for a fake. He talks his way into deals as a buyer, records the sales pitches, and compares what he's told against what dealers and experts say the objects are actually worth. The film treats Jerusalem's sanctity as the con's raw material: the more a tourist wants an object to be real, the easier they are to fool. Part of the Scam City series, it stays close to Woodman's own attempts to get scammed rather than narrating from a distance.