Recognizing and Defending Against Creeping Violence

I spoke last week with a woman who built a house in Belize. Apparently it was burglarized several times. After she moved away, her husband mysteriously died there -- he had stayed to protect the house before they sold it. Then I got a visit from a friend who'd retired to Brazil but badly wants to come home. He recently had his gold chain ripped from his neck while he was on a private beach. I was thinking this was a Central/South American thing, largely because I was being told that U.S. citizens were being targeted.