Kharem, center, is a busy pickpocket in Barcelona.
Picking before picking
Some pickpockets, Angelo for example, rifle full speed through as many pockets and purses as possible in a tight crowd. That’s his M.O. Others, like Kharem in Barcelona, look for a good bet before taking chances. Kharem wanted to show us his talent. We had to hold him back.
Barcelona pickpocket Kharem guided us on a thief’s tour of La Rambla.
“Just point and talk,” Bob instructed him.
But he did more than that. Brazen and fearless, he actually tapped on men’s pockets as we fast-walked through the crowd. No one seemed to notice. Nobody gave him a second glance. Kharem, the professional thief, slipped in and out of strangers’ personal spheres like a gnat through a window screen.
How pickpockets pick victims
“Most important is to figure out where the money is. Pants, jacket, waist pouch, backpack. That man has a fat wallet in his jacket pocket,” the pickpocket said, while the would-be victim was still several yards away. “See how his jacket is hanging unevenly.” He swept his thumbtip across his forehead in that odd gesture of his.
“And this man,” Kharem touched the thigh of a stranger. “He has loose cash. Very good. Very easy.”
Pickpocket paradise, but still requires nerve and patience
Luciano’s morning hit was tense. He had ridden the trams during what should have been rush-hour, but for the relative desertion of the business world. The city was shut, shop fronts literally shuttered and padlocked for the summer holidays. Luciano had tried and failed four times that first hour, backing off each attempt at the last second. Once the tram lurched and he bumped clumsily into his mark, and once he thought he was noticed by someone sitting nearby. The other two efforts just weren’t right—he couldn’t get the right angle.
Who are the pickpockets? Waiting to board on a blistering day.Pickpocket paradise: a tram packed to bursting, thieves squashed against victims
Pickpocket Paradise
Finally, he got close to a businessman in a sport coat. It was one of the last crowded trams of the morning. The mark was hanging onto a ceiling strap with one hand and trying to read a folded newspaper in his other. His jacket was hanging open. Luciano, hating face-to-face work, broke into a sweat. He used a floppy leather portfolio to shield his hand as he slid it against the breast pocket, where he’d seen the weight of a wallet.
His partner Stefano was so close Luciano could smell the espresso on the blocker’s breath. Yet, they never looked at one another. Luciano willed his hand to be steady and light. He willed the mark to keep reading. He hoped the leather [wallet] wouldn’t snag on a fold of fabric.
Pinching the wallet between his middle fingertip and the nail of his first finger, he slipped it out. It was a smooth move—textbook. He slid it down to thigh level along with his brown portfolio, and Stefano’s hand was ready as if by instinct. Stefano then plunged the wallet into his own deep pants pocket, and covered the bulge with a plastic grocery bag. At the next corner he stepped off the tram before it even stopped. Luciano stayed on two blocks longer, heart pounding, then got off and met Stefano midway, as usual.
Stefano had already dumped the leather. They split the proceeds equally.
“Why should the blocker get an equal share?” we had asked Luciano. “The skill is yours. The pressure is on you.”
Pickpocket partners Tony and Mario as they steal Bob Arno’s wallet
So, we’re standing at a bar near the train station, drinking espresso with pickpockets in Naples (how we got here is described in Part One of this story) right after they stole our wallet. Bob attempts to describe his profession. In a combination of French, English, and a little Italian, he tries to explain that he’s an entertainer, a performer, a stage pickpocket—which leads to…
A Misunderstanding and a Proposition
“First let me explain,” Bob said, “I work in casinos. I do big operations. I also do theaters. I am an artiste.” He looked around for someone wearing a watch. “Let me show you.”
Bob reached a long arm out to a newcomer in the bar and lifted his watch, his customary proof of comradeship.
“Oh, bravo!” Mario and Tony laughed. “He took the bus driver’s watch! Good job, well done.” The driver got his watch back and faded into the background. Is it logical, or odd, that pickpockets and bus drivers hang out at the same bar?
Stealing credit cards
“Me, I steal credit cards,” said Mario. “Visa—wait, wait, listen to this! You speak all these languages. If you work with me we’ll make so much money. I know all the cities. Florence, Venice, Viareggio…. We can work in Rome, Naples…”
Mario clearly did not capish Bob’s explanation about casinos, theaters, and artiste.
“But there’s no money in Naples!” Bob scoffed.
“No, no, here is good! Here I steal credit cards. Then I go to a shop and buy Rolexes. Rolex! You understand? Then I sell them, get money, and I share with my friends.”
Mario was convinced that Bob worked at casinos and theaters as a thief—a real artiste. It was only later that we realized the ambiguity of Bob’s earnest attempt at a job description. Unintentionally reinforcing the error, Bob laughed, bumped into Mario, and lifted the wallet from Mario’s back pocket.
Bob Arno boards a crowded tram in Naples, Italy
“Oh, I see what you do! Multi-bravo!” Mario said, and in Neapolitan explained to the bartender what had happened. “He took my wallet, he’s pretty smart! We came in here to have coffee together.” Mario didn’t mention the other part, that he’d taken Bob’s wallet first. But the bartender probably knew that.
“I have some friends at shops who help with these things. We’d make a good team, you and me. If you work with me, I can give you each a thousand dollars a day!” Yes, each! “Have you been to Ischia? To Capri?”
Mario’s cellphone rang. “Bueno. I’m by the Vesuviana. Okay, I’m coming over there. Ciao.”
Mario and Tony spoke to each other for a moment in Neapolitan, trying to figure out why Bob does this. He does it as a hobby, they concluded, just for fun.
“Madam, you want to try?” Tony offered me a taste of his almond milk, which looked intriguing but, was I going to drink from a stranger’s glass? A known thief? Bob and I were concurrently on the trail of the “yellow bomb,” in which patient thieves in Turkey spike drinks with Nembitol or benzodiazepine, then rob the knocked-out victim.
“No, grazie.” Looking at Tony, I pointed to the t-shirt he had draped over his shoulder satchel. I pointed to the t-shirt and smiled, tapped my head like “I know,” then waggled my finger and shook my head. The international pantomime worked, and Tony laughed. “No good,” he agreed, and stuffed the shirt into the satchel. I hadn’t noticed the hanging shirt when we were on the tram together but, if I had, it would have signaled “pickpocket” in a big way.
“Tomorrow I go to my family,” Mario said. “My wife is in Calabria with the children. I am driving to Calabria this evening to be with them, and I’m coming back tomorrow.”
I tried to picture this bus-working wallet-thief heading off to a seaside vacation.
“Here is my mobile phone number,” Mario said, handing Bob a piece of paper. “Call me. Any day is good.”
“But we’re leaving Napoli,” Bob began.
Mario interrupted. “Listen to me properly. The 18th and 19th of this month I will be in Florence. Florence is very, very good. I know everything about it. I can find out right away if the credit cards are good or not. And you would be a perfect partner because you speak French, English—”
“And I speak German as well,” Bob said. Wait—was he buying into this?
“So you come with your wife and we’re going to take credit cards only for Rolex. We’ll work on the train that goes from Florence to Monaco to Paris.” Mario made a stealthy swiping motion. “There’s a lot of good stuff we can do together.”
“That’s difficult for me.”
A typical coffee bar in Naples
“Listen. I get on the train that goes to these places, Vienna, Florence, Monaco, Paris. I go all day long and I take only credit cards. We make seven- to ten-thousand euros in one day. If you want, tomorrow, call me.”
Omigod. That’s nine- to thirteen-thousand dollars. Now I pictured Mario roaring down the highway in a Ferrari, adoring family eagerly awaiting the hard-working dad at their private summer villa.
“I can’t call you tomorrow, but maybe the day after. We’ll be in Venice for three days.”
“You work in Venice?” Mario looked surprised. “Okay, but you pay attention. Be careful there.”
“Yes, I know,” Bob said. By now it was too much to explain.
“If you do it properly, this is a fabulous job. Especially in Venice.”
“But there’s a vigilante group there.”
“I know, I’ve been there for Carnivale. I know the place.”
We said our good-byes and thanked Mario for the coffee.
“This is Napoli! You are my guest,” he said. Right, the same guest he’d tried to rip off half an hour ago. We ambled back to the buses, the four of us, splitting to opposite ends of the waiting passengers.
Bob and I, a bit stunned, wanted to get on the first bus that came along. As one pulled up and we moved toward the door, Mario shouted from thirty yards away: not that one, next one. Then he and Tony hopped on another and, presumably, went back to work.
Over coffee we had chided and joked with these high-end pickpockets, conversing easily in French. Having accidentally established ourselves as professional colleagues, we rode the misconception to our advantage, encouraging Mario to tell us about his world. As Mario spoke, I recorded him with a visible, hip-held video camera, which I tossed around casually. I was worried about being caught with the camera running. Bob and I were jolly and friendly, belying our nerves and disapproval. Tony was reserved, possibly due to his lack of French. Mario was enthusiastic and embracing, but was he feigning? We thought not.
Naples has a history steeped in crime and a people sincerely warm and jovial. It just might be the thievery capital of the world. I’m not sure, though; there are so many contenders. Myth and history tell us that it’s is the birthplace of pizza, but today this gritty, passionate, mob-infested city is better known for its pickpocketing. Who’s involved? Who lives in the underworld? Who’s on the fringes? It’s impossible for an outsider to know.
“Do you have any books on the Camorra crime family?” Bob asked later in a book shop.
“Camorra! The Camorra is a fantasy,” the shop owner replied dismissively. He was smiling though. In Naples, one only whispers about the Camorra.
Tony laughs nervously on the tram when asked to return Bob’s stolen wallet.
Coffee with Thieves
An August Sunday in Naples. Holiday time for all of Europe and most shops were shut. We bought bus tickets at a kiosk with our last coins, dodged the wild traffic, and crossed to the narrow center strip to wait for a crowded bus. I carried a small video camera in my hands and wore a fanny pack containing my other camera. Bob had a hidden camera, its guts stowed in a shoulder-bag he wore across his chest.
A number one bus arrived, jammed. I didn’t think we’d be able to get on. The doors jerked open and a few passengers tumbled out like crickets escaping from a child’s jar. Bob and I shuffled forward with the mob as the people onboard compacted like empties. We would never voluntarily join such a scene were it not for the call of research. This was highly unpleasant; beyond funny.
“No way. Let’s wait for another,” I said to Bob.
Tony the pickpocket would rather stay on the bus than go for coffee with his victim.
Two clean-cut middle-aged men who’d gotten off the bus were now behind us, corralling the doubtful like sheepdogs. Somehow, with their encouragement, we all got on, filling spaces we hadn’t known existed. The good samaritans kept us from bursting off the bus in the pressure while one yelled “chiude a porta, chiude a porta,” close the door!
My chest was pressed against a vertical pole. A wiry man in front of me had his back to the same pole. Glancing down, I saw his hand behind his back, blindly trying to make sense of the zipper tabs on my fanny pack, which I’d paperclipped together. I watched, half amused, half outraged at his audaciousness.
Pickpockets in Naples, Italy
We’d already made half a dozen or so tram trips that morning and had been pickpocketed on most of them. We hadn’t yet seen the same thieves twice. By now it seemed a certainty: riding a crowded bus or tram in Naples meant intimacy with a thief. Well, let me qualify that to specify buses and trams on lines that tourists might travel; specifically those stopping at the ship and ferry terminal, the archeological museum, and the train stations. Looking at the protective behavior of local passengers, bus-bandits seemed to be an accepted fact of life, as if there’s one in every crowd.
The disembodied hand couldn’t solve the puzzle in its fingertips. It dropped, or crawled away of its own accord. No success, no accusation.
Bob suddenly reached for my camera and held it high above the compressed mob, pointing down.
Pickpocket Mario, Tony’s partner, convinces Tony to go with us for coffee.
“Give back the wallet,” he said quietly. “There’s no money in it.”
“Okay, okay,” said one of the good samaritans. He handed it back with a sheepish grin below ultra-cool wraparound reflective sunglasses. In the video, you can see him lower the wallet to his thigh and check its contents.
“Come talk to us,” Bob said in French as the doors popped open. “Just talk—and coffee.”
“Café? Café?” He raised an invisible little cup to his lips, pinkie outstretched. “Okay.” But when the doors opened there was a cat-and-mouse game as we all four hopped off and on the bus with opposing motives. They were trying to ditch us. Finally Bob and I were on the ground with one of the pair while the other hung in the doorway of the bus, reluctant. “C’mon,” we all yelled to the last guy, and he finally joined us.
The men led us into a bar across the street and as we entered, I realized we had no money with us. Horrified, I pulled the last note from my pocket, not even enough for an inexpensive Italian espresso.
“No problem, you are my guests,” said the Italian who spoke French, with the hospitality of a Neapolitan. He ushered us in with the same warmth and efficiency he’d used to herd us onto the bus. He ordered three coffees, four glasses of water, and one almond milk.
“Bambi and Bob,” we introduced ourselves.
Mario, a high-end pickpocket who steals credit cards on trains to Florence, Paris, Monte Carlo.
“Mario,” said the one who spoke French. He studied us quizzically, as if he’d never been invited for coffee by a man whose wallet he’d just swiped.
“Tony,” said the reluctant other, and we all shook hands.
Mario was trim, 50ish, with smooth skin, curly salt-and-pepper hair, and a receding hairline. He wore a crisp white t-shirt tucked into blue shorts secured with a leather belt. With a watch, gold ring, cellphone, and snazzy shades, this was no lowlife, drugged-up desperado. Mario looked respectable, like anybody’s brother.
Tony was a little rounder, and clearly the junior partner. He squinted under a blue baseball cap, and—did you ever want to know where a pickpocket keeps his wallet?—in the pocket of his blue button-down shirt. It was Tony who’d first tried to take Bob’s wallet on the bus, but Mario who succeeded and slipped it to Tony.
Unlike most of the other cities we’ve visited, pickpockets in Naples are homegrown. They’re not immigrants, handy to take the rap, or despised illegals doing what they can for their very survival. These are Neapolitans practicing an age-old profession without, as far as we can tell, a shred of shame.
This young pickpocket has just returned Bob’s wallet and is now nervous and uncomfortable, trapped on a moving train with her victim.
Hunting Pickpockets on Rome Metro
As we rode the steep escalator to the depths of Rome’s Termini Station we marveled at the swirling, pushing, roiling crowd of passengers. Before we reached the bottom, we could see several uniformed officers on the platform. Bob groaned.
“Bad luck for us. There won’t be any pickpockets with the police around.”
It was nearly noon. We thought we’d have a quick look anyway, then surface for a lunch of Roman-fried artichokes and zucchini flowers. But as we were funneled off the escalator, we immediately recognized the abused-looking face of a pregnant pickpocket we’d filmed years earlier. Again, she was big with child. The woman, perhaps 20 years old now, swayed on her feet and smiled as she kidded with the police officers.
What was going on?
Had it not been for that familiar face, we wouldn’t have looked twice at a trendy teenager nearby. The girl wore cute, tight pants rolled up at the cuffs, a clingy, low-cut top, and the latest in designer eyeglasses. She wore a gaudy choker and makeup, her lips darkly outlined with pencil.
Two female pickpockets in Rome’s subway. The one wearing a cap later stole Bob’s wallet.
In no way did she fit our previous pickpocket profile. Her dark hair was short and straight, neatly cut at shoulder length, sticking out beneath a black baseball cap. Slung across her chest, she carried the latest style shoulder-bag, the body-hugging, wide-strapped leather pouch with extra cellphone/glasscase/coin compartments attached to the broad strap. Smart and sassy, she resembled not-at-all her dowdy, pregnant friend. The girl was suspect by association.
The two girls conversed together, and with the uniformed officers as well.
At first we assumed the girls had been arrested and were awaiting police escort to the station. How silly of us. After five or six minutes of chat, the girls and officers wandered from the bottom of the escalator to the train platform, which was momentarily quiet. Their joking and laughing continued, and there was even a little friendly physical contact initiated by one officer.
A new crowd soon built up on the platform, and our attention turned to a perfect suspect, a pudgy male. We watched his eyes, and the way they locked onto another passenger. He moved to his chosen one and stood close.
The train swooshed in and stopped abruptly. Its doors slid open and clotted streams of human beings gushed forth, flowing, somehow, into the mass of bodies waiting on the platform, coalescing into a solid, writhing, determined organism. The new being contracted, then broke into bits, dispersing like grains from a punctured sack of rice.
The pudgy male followed his mark onto the train, shuffling in tiny steps so close, so close. He wouldn’t allow anyone to separate them. Bob and I followed, intending to film him, but we were roughly shunted to the right by a last-second surge of passengers as the train doors tried to shut. There was no way we could filter our narrow bodies through the dense pack to get closer to Pudgy.
Three of the many pickpockets surrounding us on the subway train in Rome.
Pickpockets everywhere
Before we had time for disappointment, Bob turned to me.
“All around us,” he said under his breath.
Yes, four young men, on three sides of Bob and one behind me. They were eyeing each other. The tallest, in front of Bob, already had Bob’s wallet.
“Give it back.” Bob said, firmly but quietly. “Give me the wallet.”
No response. Four pairs of wild eyes now flicked everywhere but at each other, everywhere but at their victim.
“Give me the wallet.” Bob hardened his voice and stared at the tall one.
Plunk. The wallet hit the floor and the men stepped aside.
I picked it up as the train reached a station. Bob was still glaring at the four. He intended to follow them onto the platform.
The foursome got off and we were right behind them. But there, on the platform, was the pudgy male we’d followed earlier. We dropped the four and snuck up on Pudgy, who was now behind a crowd waiting to board while a stream of others disembarked.
Bob’s camera was still rolling.
“Pudgy” prepares to lean toward his victim, whose wallet he steals. (I know, bad quality photo. It’s a frame-grab from video in a dark area.)
Behind the waiting passengers, Pudgy did a slow lunge, reaching his hands as far forward as possible. Bob leaned dangerously against the train, straining to see, angling his camera. Pudgy stretched toward a man who shuffled slowly toward the train door. With both hands, he opened the Velcro flap, then put one hand right into the cargo pocket low on the man’s thigh, and came out with a wallet. He turned and rushed away down the platform, suddenly followed by a cluster of children—like the Pied Piper. We followed him to an escalator where a security guard, watching our pursuit, shouted “Kick him! Kick him!” over and over. Obviously, Pudgy was well-known in the area, and frustrated guards have little authority over crimes they do not witness.
Where were we? I gave Bob the recovered wallet and he replaced it in his fanny pack. We turned to look for a station name and there, standing in a just-arrived train, was the trendy teenager in the black cap.
We dashed on before the doors slammed shut. The train lurched and gathered speed. Squashed against the door, we scrutinized the passengers. Now I noticed that the teen girl wore the small crude tattoos often associated with criminal tribes: two on her upper arm and at least one more on her hand.
“Give me back the wallet,” Bob said quietly. I didn’t even know she’d taken it. She tossed her hair and looked away, inching closer to the door.
“Give it back.” Bob pointed his sunglass case (containing a hidden camera) directly at her. He’d already filmed her hand in his fanny pack. Now he focused on her face.
She licked her made-up lips and blinked nervously, trapped beside her victim. Finally, she unzipped her shoulder-bag and removed Bob’s wallet. She handed it to him meekly.
The train came to a stop and the stealthy opportunist made a quick escape. Bob and I returned to Termini, ready for lunch. We’d only been three stations away.
Back at Termini, as we shuffled along with the mob toward the escalator, we saw the uniformed officers again, and with them, the pregnant pickpocket, the trendy teenager, and at least a dozen others.
Pickpockets and police: friends? or what…
Instead of surfacing for lunch, we lingered on the platform, watching the interaction. The area had cleared of passengers. Six or eight police officers sauntered around among the 15 or so in the pickpocket gang. There were women with babies on their chests, women without babies, and many children. All of them, pickpockets and police, loitered comfortably together in a loose and shifting association. Passengers began to arrive again, but the platform was still pretty empty. A clutch of women formed a huddle nearby, bending inwards. Soon they straightened, a knot opening like the petals of a daisy, or a fist opening to reveal a treasure. As the women moved away, each counted a wad of bills and stuffed them into a pocket or backpack. They made no effort to hide their swag.
“Pudgy” the pickpocket on the Rome Metro train
Later, analyzing the footage of our subway exploits, we were astonished to see the trendy teenager lift another wallet before she took ours. Her victim was a woman who clutched her handbag to her chest. Beneath it she wore a fanny pack. Bob’s camera, held low as we entered the train, recorded what our eyes had missed: the trendy teenager’s tattooed hand unzipping the fanny pack, removing a wallet, and rezipping the bag. Then she brought the stolen goods up to her own bag, and out of the camera’s range. Two wallets in two minutes! That could add up to serious money, depending on how many palms had to be greased.
Unfamiliar fingers fiddled with the flap of my bag.
I let them. My American Express card was in the purse, along with a small camera and other things I’d hate to lose. Still, out of the corner of my eye, I watched without interfering.
I was wedged like a flimsy pamphlet between big brass bookends, and about as immobile, too. We had just boarded the metro train at Omonia Station in downtown Athens. The train was packed with it’s usual proportion of locals, tourists, and pickpockets. It was hot, airless, and odoriferous to distraction.
Bob and I had been separated by a force from behind as we boarded the car in a crush of bodies. The power behind the force stood between us: two large men in their thirties. I had one hand on a ceiling strap, the other protectively clutching a cheap-looking canvas bag on my shoulder, which perfectly disguised my laptop. My purse hung low and appeared vulnerable.
The fingers tugged gently, but I knew it was futile. I had tied a small knot in the leather cord of the drawstring bag. I allowed the man to try solely to confirm to myself that he was what we suspected him to be.
Pickpockets on trains
Bob and I had watched these two on the platform. They were neatly dressed, clean-cut, and spoke Russian. They stood apart from one another as if they weren’t together. Their behavior on the platform made them suspects. When an uncrowded train came and they didn’t get on it, they were as good as guilty in our minds. Then again… we didn’t board that train either.
A train in Athens
We squeezed onto the next sardine can and Boris and Igor (as I’ll call them) pressed themselves in behind us, then between us. Igor bumped hard against me, spinning me against my will as he orbited around me. Just a little self-serving do-si-do accompanied by a fleeting expression of apology as he positioned himself to his secret advantage. Physical contact was unavoidable in the over-crowded car. Against my forearm, I could feel Igor’s wrist twitching as his fingers played with my bag.
The two men looked everywhere but at me. As our favorite New York cop taught us, watch their eyes. They seemed to be making unnecessary head movements, looking here and there as if they had no idea what was happening down below and were not responsible in the least for any mischief their hands might do.
Igor didn’t mess around long. At the next station, he slapped his forehead in a pantomime of stupid me, I forgot!, and slipped off the train. Boris followed. Bob and I did not.
Then they surprised us: they reboarded the other end of the same car, enabling us to observe them. Although the Russian-speaking pair towered over the short Greeks and most of the tourists, our line of sight wasn’t perfect across the mass of passengers.
Igor looked at Boris and Boris looked away. They had sandwiched a woman tourist and separated her from her husband, just as they had done with us. This was their method of stabilizing the victim, of impeding her movement. The couple took it in stride though, and braced themselves with both hands against the jerking and jostling of the train as it sped to the next station. They were understandably oblivious to the intentions of their neighbors. But they were unacceptably oblivious of their belongings, their situation, and their vulnerability. We were dying to shout out, to yell pickpocket! It is our deepest urge and instinct to warn others of the danger we’re so aware of. However… however…
We didn’t. For the reasons we have and will further explain, we let the situation take its course. We reminded ourselves: we are researchers in the field, observing and documenting a specific behavior, and we use the knowledge we gain to educate many. Once again and with twinges of guilt, we refrained from interfering.
Athens contrast
Athens’ green line is notorious for pickpockets. This convenient route is heavily used by tourists from Piraeus at the southern end, where ferries and cruise ships dock, to Thiseio for the Acropolis, Monastiraki for the Plaka shopping district, and Omonia Square, the city center. When these trains are crowded, and they frequently are, they’re pickpocket paradise. Thieves thrive on the forced physical contact, distraction of discomfort, and bodies hiding their dirty work.
Boris and Igor were swiveling their heads with exaggerated nonchalance. The train lurched into darkness for about three seconds. When it emerged, Igor lowered his sunglasses from the top of his head to his eyes. A got-it signal, we reflected later.
Still pretending not to know each other, they shoved impolitely through the standing crowd to position themselves against the doors. They were first to exit the train as the doors slid open, and they separated immediately, walking in opposite directions on the platform. The tourist couple was almost last to get off the train, so we jumped off also and caught up with them. We could see right away that the woman’s bag had been slit with a razor.
Why hadn’t those thug-like thieves sliced my bag? I knew they wanted it. Perhaps they thought the leather too thick, or they weren’t happy with their access or angle. Possibly the knot in my drawstring signaled my awareness of potential danger. Maybe they thought someone could see them, or their getaway would be hindered.
How to avoid pickpockets
Boris and Igor left me for someone else. It’s proof of the tremendous coordination of innumerable aspects required from the perpetrator’s perspective. So many factors must be in alignment before a thief will take a chance; so many conditions must be just right. With such a delicate balance necessary, it is not difficult to throw a monkey wrench into the thief’s equilibrium. Eliminate one or more of the elements he requires, and he’d just as soon move on to an easier target with a higher likelihood of success.
A pickpocket uses a newspaper to hide his steal. Any external storage is vulnerable, be it a pocket, purse, or fannypack.
The question we’re most asked is… where should I carry my valuables? What’s the safest place to carry money?
And the ambiguous answer is… it depends on who you are and where you’re going.
First analyze yourself. Are you a worrier? Overconfident? Carefree? Forgetful? Only you can choose the level of security for you. Will you be trekking in the highlands of Peru? Walking with elephants in East Africa? Or going to museums and the opera in London? What’s the tone of your trip, elegant? grungy? in between? What’s the weather? Summer clothes, especially women’s, have fewer pockets and far less security. No one is likely to get into the pockets of your jeans if you have a heavy coat over them.
Safest place to carry money
We say keep your wallet in your tightest pocket, but in many situations that isn’t enough. A wallet in a visible pocket is an invitation. Awareness helps. But maybe you don’t need to carry a wallet. Slim down your necessities, if you can.
Excellent products are readily available for the safekeeping of your stuff. Under-shirt pouches are pretty good, but they can usually be detected and demanded in a mugging. For all but the most dangerous streets, they’re a good option. Better yet is the type of pouch that hangs inside the pants, attached to your belt by a loop. These come in a full range of materials, from nylon to cotton to leather. We love these.
The nimble fingers of a pickpocket can easily open a fanny pack while hidden from the victim’s view. Even a twisted wire will thwart the thief.
Another kind of pouch fastens around your waist and is worn beneath your clothes. These come in infinite styles, sizes, and varieties and are excellent for men and women. It’s a little more difficult to get to your money or credit card when you need it, but what’s a little effort? Sometimes these are referred to as moneybelts, but they’re not. A moneybelt is a regular leather belt worn outside trousers; it has a zippered compartment on the inside. You can fold in a few large bills or travelers checks, but it won’t hold much.
Secure your fanny pack zippers with paperclips, or anything to slow a thief.
What about the ubiquitous fanny pack, aka waist pouch, aka bumbag? Well, it’s good and it’s bad. On one hand, all your goodies are right in front, on your body, in sight. On the other hand, the fanny pack shouts out “here’s my stuff!” For the most part, Bob and I recommend them for security, if you don’t mind the fashion statement they make. We have never seen, and rarely heard of their straps being cut. However: in many locales pickpockets are extremely adept at opening fanny packs and stealing their contents quick as lightning, while you’re wearing it. I recommend a simple preventative: fasten the zipper with a safety pin or with a paperclip and rubber band. Anything to frustrate wandering fingers. For the fanatic, fanny packs can be found that incorporate numerous safety features, including steel cable through the strap, a concealed buckle, a hidden key clip, and built-in zipper locks.
Several companies make clothes for travelers with zippered, Velcroed, and hidden pockets. I haven’t seen a look that I like much, but these are an option if you care for the somewhat dowdy styles on offer.
Clever Travel Companion’s black tankStashitware men’s pocket undies.
Lastly, there’s a growing variety of pickpocket-proof underwear. The Clever Travel Companion makes a nice collection of briefs for men and women and zip-pocket tank tops. Stashitware makes several styles of underpants for men and women that have a huge central pocket I find most comfortable and useful. (And you have to love a company with the balls to use “shit” in its name.)
No solution is perfect. None is invincible. But if you carry only what you need, and secure those things wisely, you’ll avoid anxiety and better enjoy your travels. So dress down, stow your stuff, raise your antennas, swallow three spoonfuls of skepticism, and have a great journey.
Two pickpockets look back at their angry intended victim.
When in Prague, Czech your Wallet
We hit the cobblestones as soon as we had dropped our bags and admired our room in King George’s House hotel, an atmospheric 14th century building in Prague’s Staré Mesto district. The late-summer crowd of budget tourists absorbed us into their mass migration. We surrendered to their pace, joining pudgy, reddened, middle-aged German men in sleeveless t-shirts and Birkenstocks with socks, tattooed skinheads wearing studded collars, and dizzy-eyed long-hairs whose sole employment seemed to be wrapping strands of hair in multi-colored thread.
Since pickpockets operate where tourists congregate, we allowed the happily drifting crowd to sweep us along the narrow lanes. It wasn’t easy to peel our eyes away from the intriguing marionette shops, enticing beer joints, and the renaissance-costumed concert touts. But our mission meant scrutinizing people, not souvenirs and architecture. We disciplined ourselves to study the throng and began to get used to the faces, rhythm, and tempo around us.
When we emerged into a sunny clearing, we found ourselves at the foot of Charles Bridge, a magnet for tourists. The many graceful arches of this medieval bridge step across the broad Vltava River to the Mala Strana area. Mala Strana is a popular pub and restaurant district, and a little further up the hill is Prague Castle. So Charles Bridge is heavy with pedestrian traffic all day and late into the night. Nestled among its 18th century statues, artists and craftsmen ply their wares and musicians play everything from classical to klezmer. The bridge is a destination itself.
Thiefhunting
The two women at left are pickpockets. The two boys at right are their stalls. The woman at center was the intended victim.
We realized at once that the square at the foot of Charles Bridge offered a unique opportunity for pickpockets. A street of wild traffic and speeding trams separates old town from Charles Bridge. Everyone wishing to get from one place to the other must cross the street here at a stoplight. Crowds of a hundred or more people, mostly tourists, quickly accumulate on both sides of the street. Pickpockets have ample time to locate a mark, get in position, and work them while they cross.
Pickpockets in Prague
An affectionate couple on the street corner caught our attention in a big way. When the light changed and the traffic paused, they crossed the busy street among a mob of gawking tourists. But three quarters of the way across the street they abruptly turned and crossed back to where they had begun.
In the “matador” position, the pickpocket (left) slings a coat on her shoulder when she’s ready to work. The coat blocks others from seeing her handiwork.
There they stood, again waiting to cross with the next gathering crowd. The man’s hand casually rested on the woman’s right shoulder. The woman had a blue blazer hanging from her left shoulder. They were better dressed than any of the summer tourists, but somehow didn’t quite look like local business people, either.
The woman sidled up to a man waiting to cross. The light changed. The pedestrians stepped off the curb and surged around the nose of a tram, which had come to a stop in the crossers’ territory.
The man shifted his hand to the woman’s left shoulder, where he anchored her blazer. The woman used her left hand to extend the blazer, completely shielding her work. As we all reached the opposite curb, I fought through the crowd and tried to speak with the elderly gentleman who was the woman’s target.
In Prague at the Charles Bridge crossing, pickpockets block their marks as they cross the street to slow them down.
“Where are you from?” I asked him.
“Greece,” his wife said. The man was old and hard of hearing.
“Does he have his wallet?” I asked.
The wife didn’t understand.
“Portofoli?” I asked, pointing to the old man’s pocket and hoping I remembered the correct Greek word for wallet.
The wife felt her husband’s pocket and looked up at me in alarm. I looked wildly around for the affectionate couple but they were gone. Thinking frantically for the Greek word for pickpocket, I tried Spanish and Italian. Finally, klepsimo. The woman understood, but why not—the wallet was gone. She hurried away from me before I could say anything else, as if I were the thief.
The moments you’re boarding public transportation are your riskiest in the world of pickpocketry. A pickpocket in Athens shows us just how slick, and how fast, he can get your wallet.
Victim accuses pickpocket on train in Athens.
Here’s a pickpocket technique we saw but didn’t see. We were riding the green line in sweltering Athens. A woman in a yellow shirt and her male pal were already on the train when Bob and I boarded. They moved aside, making it easier for us to get on, then sandwiched Bob, separating me away. The male wore a t-shirt which proclaimed “generation (picture of a dog) free.” He pressed a flaccid shoulder-bag against Bob’s pants pocket while his partner tried to get Bob’s prop wallet.
“That was good,” Bob said to me in Swedish, our code-speak, because we assume few people understand it. “She tried but didn’t get it.” Probably because Bob’s pocket was pretty deep. We don’t want to make it too easy for them.
A pickpocket in Athens
Giving up, Dog Free hung his bag on his shoulder and inched away innocently, riding in sweaty silence. As the train approached Omonia station, he readied himself for another attempt.
A Greek gentleman boarded. Yellow and Dog Free, still on the train, blocked his way.
Pickpocket’s accomplice.
“Excuse me,” the Greek man said. “Let me get by.”
Yellow and Dog Free slid around behind him. Yellow flashed a flat parcel down low. Amid the confusion, I saw a hand briefly grip a pocket. In the swirl of people, I couldn’t identify whose hand it was, or even whose pocket. I was holding a camera low, blindly aiming at the known thief’s hands. Bob held his camera near the ceiling, pointing down.
The train hadn’t left yet. Dog Free pushed himself through the crowd with Yellow close behind. He stepped off the train, but the Greek was quick. He grabbed Dog Free’s wrist, pulling him back onto the train. Yellow walked.
“Come here!” the victim said in Greek.
“What do you want, mister?”
“You took my wallet!”
“What did I take?” Dog Free said. “You’re out of your mind. Search me! Look, look!”
The victim groped desperately in his empty pocket and released Dog Free. The thief left, the doors slammed shut, and the train departed.
Victim accuses pickpocket, while accomplice (in yellow) slips away—probably with the victim’s wallet.
“Did he get your wallet?” we asked. “Portofoli?”
“Yes, he got it. I wasn’t sure if it was him or not, not a hundred percent.”
We asked the victim if he’d like us to go to the police with him, that we thought we might have the steal on film, and we certainly had the faces of the thieves. But no, he didn’t want to.
“He didn’t get a lot of money. I had only 20 euros.” (About $27.)
“What did he say?”
“He said he didn’t do it.” The Greek threw up his hands.
Sweaty and spent, we retreated to a shady streetside café in the Plaka to have a light lunch and review our footage. Over tzadziki and flat bread and cold fried eggplant, we unwound, cooled off, and rewound our cameras. Hunched over our tiny screens, we scrutinized the video.
Everything was there: Yellow, and Dog Free, the Greek victim boarding. You can’t take for granted that it will be, when shooting from the hip. And we make plenty of camera mistakes in moments of high tension or excitement. We pressed play on the other camera. Sipping retsina, we held our breath through shaky minutes of feet, unidentifiable body parts, then noisy confusion.
From video shot in low light, fast motion, shot from the hip. But we got the pickpocket’s hand in the victim’s pocket.
Pickpocket in Athens “kicks the poke”
And there it was, clear and close up. It took exactly a second and a half. Yellow positioned a flat parcel as a shield while Dog Free used both hands on the right front pants pocket of the Greek. His right hand pushed the wallet up from the outside of the fabric while his left reached only an inch into the pocket.
This is a technique dips call “kick the poke.” They raise it from the depths, or turn it into a better position for lifting. Dog Free neatly clipped the raised wallet between two fingers and let the Greek simply walk away from it. It happened so fast we didn’t see it—but our camera did.
What we can’t see, but most certainly happened, is Dog Free’s pass to Yellow. Dog Free pulled up his shirt and invited a search because he was clean: he’d given the wallet to Yellow, who escaped.
We call Dog Free’s special technique finesse. Thieves who use it have an edge, but they can be bested. They’re still opportunists. And we don’t have to give them the opportunity. We just need to be aware that they have tricks and techniques most of us wouldn’t dream of.
The Pigeon Poop Pickpocket Ploy as perpetrated in Barcelona is devious. We discover the original Pigeon Poop Perp, who pretends to offer goodness. In response, naturally, his victims trust.
The pigeon poop pickpocket. He just happened to have a packet of tissues handy; just happened to have a bottle of water.
The leisurely ploy is perpetrated by the “clean-you-off-clean-you-out” good samaritan impostor. Bob and I met many of his victims before we finally found him—or rather, he found us.
We’d been staking out a suspicious trio at Temple de la Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi’s spectacular cathedral and Barcelona’s number one tourist attraction. It was a long amble back to La Rambla. We zigzagged south and west block by block, with no particular pattern. It was a pleasant route we invented, strolling past fabulous architecture, under lush green trees, while a cool wind blew and pigeons cooed.
At the corner of Consell de Cent and Girona we saw a beautifully ornate pastry shop facade which reminded us of one in Palma de Mallorca. We decided we’d peek in, see if they served coffee. We were still debating and postulating about the pickpocket team at La Sagrada Familia as we crossed the street in front of the pasticeria.
How the pigeon poop pickpocket ploy works
This guy got it good.
As I stepped up onto the curb I felt a slight wetness on the back of my knee below the hem of my skirt, as if I had splashed in a puddle. Not impossible, since it had rained recently. The rain had actually been the day before, but I just sort of knew it had rained, in the back of my mind, without really thinking about it.
Reflex made me glance into the street for the source puddle but in that same instant I knew there was no puddle. I asked Bob to look at my back but I knew what it was. I was horrified and exalted simultaneously. We were about to meet a charlatan, a gentleman thief with a fiction, an ersatz Samaritan and the most elusive of pickpockets.
Bob confirmed my disgusted suspicion: I had thick blobs of brown yuck on the back of my clothes, and so did Bob.
In that instant of offended confusion, while we admired each other’s backsides and laughed and grimaced, before we could organize our thoughts in that tenth of a minute, a man in shorts swept up to us, map in hand, sunglassed and baseball capped.
“Iy, look,” he pointed out. We swung around. “Bird, bird.”
Where did he come from? Out of the blue, it seemed. Still, we knew who he was. We knew what he was.
“Come, I help,” he offered with compassion and authority, ushering us into the pastry shop we’d been headed for. He already had a neat pack of Kleenex tissues in one hand, a small bottle of Evian in the other. He was more prepared than we had expected. Bob put his video in record.
Employees didn’t seem surprised in the pastry shop. They observed our intrusion with the vague interest of ranch hands regarding mating dogs. The man-in-shorts pressed a tissue into Bob’s hand and turned me around by the arm.
“You clean,” he said to Bob politely but insistently, indicating my back. He didn’t want to appear unseemly. You clean her and I’ll clean you—out. That was the idea. We’d heard the story many times from victims. While the husband cleans the wife, the man-in-shorts cleans the husband. Rather, he pretends to clean the husband. What he cleans is the pockets. And disappears before you know it.
Neither of us were good researchers this time: I didn’t cooperate fully, out of repulsion. And Bob was too busy filming to do his part. He was supposed to clean me off. But every time the impostor coached Bob in his role, Bob just said okay, fussed with his new camera, and failed to come to the aid of his wife. How could he videotape the scam if he were a participant? But how could the game continue without all the players?
Our man-in-shorts got frustrated and tried to slip away. We managed to waylay him though, outside the shop. We tried to get him to talk to us, to show us his squirt contraption, to tell us where he’s from. He was insistent about no video, no camera, but he didn’t rush off too obviously. He backed away slowly, trying not to look suspicious. Finally, he broke into a little trot and dashed into the handy metro stairway. Was its proximity coincidental? We think not.
Questions about the pigeon poop pickpocket ploy and M.O.
Barcelona police, it turned out, had been looking for the man-in-shorts for years. They knew his M.O., his territory, and that he was Peruvian. And they knew he always wore shorts. That was it. They now had his scam and his face on video.
We walked back toward La Rambla looking over our shoulders, hyper-observant. Bob and I disagree on the participation of the pastry shop people. I say they were in on it. I say the man-in-shorts buys his bread there and always leaves a hefty tip. I say they were awfully quick to bring out a roll of paper towels and laundry detergent when the man-in-shorts left. I say everyone’s a suspect. Bob says it’s impossible, they couldn’t be in on it. It just happened to be the corner where opportunity struck for the man-in-shorts. He couldn’t do his thing on only one corner in all the city.
J. S. Brody, an advertising executive in New York City, was a victim of the man-in-shorts. He remembers being astonished at the amount of bird droppings on his backside and his mother’s. “What do you have here, eagles?” he’d asked. The pigeon poop pickpocket ploy had taken place several blocks away from the pasticeria. For the clean-up operation, the pigeon-poop practitioner had drawn them into the lobby of an apartment house. So much for my theory on location.
Exactly ten years later—to the week!—Bob and I were strolling in the same neighborhood when we were squirted once again. We were astonished to see recognize the very same pigeon poop pickpocket. Read about our reunion with the pigeon poop pickpocket.
The pigeon poop pickpocket—exactly ten years later.
