bag snatch – Pickpocket Bob Arno

London Scooter Snatch-Theft Skyrockets. Going? Read this!

In London, scooter snatch-theft is skyrocketing.

If you’re planning a visit there, you better read on. Simple awareness of this dangerous trending crime could save your skin and bones, besides your purse and phone.

Before I define the crime, listen: if you’re a tourist in London, you’re going to be in the danger zone. One street alone has had more than 240 scooter snatch-thefts. Tourists’ favorite areas are the thieves’ favorite areas.

London scooter snatch-theft

The crime: The bandits are usually two on a scooter, Vespa, moped, or motorbike. They’re often completely covered with jackets and full-head helmets. The victim is standing or walking along with a purse or bag—or most often the target is a mobile phone. The scooter speeds by and the backseat rider snatches the victim’s purse, or the phone right out of his/her hand. The scooter is extremely maneuverable so may even be driven slowly, up onto a sidewalk and right beside the target phone or bag.

The surprise: The scooters often come from behind. They ride onto pedestrian-only areas. The victim is just walking along, or even talking on his phone. There’s no warning.

The risk: The victim can be pulled to the ground, even dragged, as was Kirat Nandra, a 51 year-old woman whose ribs and hand were broken and who suffered a concussion when she was dragged by scooter snatch-thieves who grabbed her purse in September of 2017. She counts herself lucky that she wasn’t dragged into traffic.

Ms. Nandra’s experience is just one of many referenced in the BBC’s recent article, London’s moped crime hotspots revealed. I highly recommend this article to anyone planning a visit to London. The BBC reports 23,000 London scooter snatch thefts in 2017. 23,000!

That’s a three thousand percent increase over the 837 incidents in 2012, which already sounds high.

Police cite the proliferation of motorbike-type vehicles due to high car insurance rates, few parking places, and the increase in motorbike delivery services. People aren’t locking up their two-wheeled transportation machines and the theft of these provide thieves with more vehicles for scooter snatch-theft.

Police want locals to make their bikes theft-proof. Police want pedestrians to “be more aware of their surroundings.” That sounds like blame-transfer to me, but perhaps police can’t do more. The scooter snatch-theft bandits are completely covered so can’t be identified. Police are reluctant to pursue them in high-speed cycle chases through city streets.

But how are we to curtail use of our highly-desirable phones? We use them for everything out on the streets, not just voice calls. We look at maps and directions, bus and metro schedules, notes and address books. We take photos, we text. How can we “be more aware” while using such a Swiss army knife of a tool, an instrument that is basically an extension of our own hand?

If you’re going to London, you better be aware of the risk of scooter snatch-theft.

In the words of a London scooter snatch-theft driver

“We’re looking for people that are looking down, got their phones out, with their headphones in, in particular,” says a London scooter snatch-theft driver in the video below. “Anything that’s not securely wrapped around someone’s shoulder or someone’s back.” Walking with your phone out, “you’re asking for it,” he says. “The best people [to steal from] are the people that are standing up with their phones in their hand. We don’t even have to get off the bike, we just drive straight past, grab their phone and off we go.” Pointing out a pedestrian across the road, the disguised thief continues, “Very easy. I’ll maneuver him from behind. He’s not safe anywhere. As long as he’s distracted, that’s it. That’s all I need.”

Among his other advice (watch the video) he suggests that if you need to talk on your phone while on the street, put the phone away and use your earphones.

The drive-by thefts are widespread in London, but two districts are especially hard hit, as are several streets in particular. See the graphs and map tool in the linked article to learn the riskiest areas, but be on guard all across London. If possible, don’t carry a purse. Instead, keep valuables under your clothing in pouches or in pickpocket-proof underwear. Put away your phone when you’re not using it. Keep your ears tuned for the sound of scooters, and oil your neck for swift swiveling. Or… just try to stop walking when you use your phone on the street, back up against a building, and take a glance around. And if something is snatched, let it go.

Scooter snatch-theft isn’t new. It’s long been the M.O. of handbag and Rolex thieves in Naples, Italy. Unfortunately, it’s one of the more dangerous street crimes. If you’re going to London, read the mentioned above article and watch this video.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=5CgeTbJl31w%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den-US%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent
6/6/18 Edit: How police are fighting moped theft crimes: Snatch squads to halt moped menace in London: police squads drag suspects from bikes in new tactic

6/10/18 Edit: Scooter snatch-theft perp had 13 mobile phones on him: Boy, 14, charged over seven moped robberies within one hour

Bag stolen in Barcelona cafe

The loss of a valuable shoulder bag stolen in Barcelona was devastating to the victim. The bag had been on the floor beside her chair in a café. The theft happened in just a moment’s lapse of attention.

My name is Rashmi Raman. I am a 32-year-old Indian woman from Delhi where I am law professor (yes, the irony of being a lawyer and getting robbed is not lost on me).

My handbag containing 2,200 euros, 800 USD and a few hundred British Pounds along with a lot of other currency souvenirs from my travels and all my bank cards and national identity cards, passports (old and current), yellow fever certificate (from my time in Africa) and my journal, a book, personal cosmetics and electronics was robbed from right next to my chair while I had a morning coffee with a colleague at No. 3, Calle Pelai in Barcelona at 10.40 AM on Friday July 22.

Bag stolen in Barcelona café

The café we were sitting inside was Subway, right across the street from our hotel. I wouldn’t normally have had all my money and papers on me for just stepping out for a coffee though I have been traveling with all this on me for years now. I don’t know how to rationalize what happened to me but I guess it’s just really really rotten luck.

I filed a police report immediately at the underground precinct at Plaça Catalunya. The next day I went back to the café to meet the owner and request to see the CCTV footage. He was kind enough to show it to me. I watched in horror as the CCTV footage clearly showed a white man, dressed in checks, calmly grab my brown leather bag, throw something white over it and walk out of the café. Ten seconds later I saw myself leaping up in panic on the video.

I don’t know how I survived it… My life has been a nightmare the past weeks since then. Getting back to India without a passport and no money was hellish. I don’t know how long it will take me to come to terms with everything I lost that day.

What inhuman madness would possess someone to steal every scrap of my worldly belongings and leave me destitute and without identity in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language? Why couldn’t he have had the courage or decency to return my passport and identity cards to the hotel? The hotel’s key card was in the bag. It is not too difficult to understand what hell you are unleashing on unsuspecting tourists by robbing them like this.

I will never see again the familiar pages and the many beloved stamps on my passports. I cannot understand what use they are to him? He probably threw away everything except the cash. He threw away the hard-earned records of my whole life.

Don’t blame the restaurant—thieves are everywhere!

I felt really silly actually going to Subway for a coffee that morning—in a month of traveling in Spain that was the first and only morning I chose a chain restaurant over the dozens of much more charming local cafés… I can’t imagine what got into me to go to Subway that day.

I was staying at the Catalonia Ramblas which is across the street from the Subway on 3, Calle Pelai. The hotel staff were really amazing and helped me file the police report, translated for me, and were a huge support.

I’m using my real name in case the thief ever reads this and he has all my ID (as well as my personal journal). Perhaps nobody knows more about me than he does!

Thanks for the work you are doing documenting theft in Barcelona and giving victims like me a space to vent—it is much appreciated.

— Rashmi Raman

I feel for Rashmi. I, too, often carry a loaded shoulder bag when I travel. And that’s despite everyone’s advice—including my own—to leave it in the hotel room. Sometimes the room isn’t ready. Or you don’t feel great about the security in the room. Or you need that cash or those documents with you. Sometime, you just need to carry your stuff.

In those cases though, there’s one rule I never, ever break: keep physical contact with the bag. It’s big and heavy, but it stays on my lap. Or tight behind my back on the chair. Or maybe with my foot through the straps (very rare). Even that practice is not failsafe—bag snatchers may rip and run. I never, ever hang my bag on the back of a chair. My husband, Bob Arno, is a white-hat pickpocket. Watch him easily steal items from customers in a café.

For almost every bag stolen in Barcelona, and there are many, there’s a rule broken. I said almost. Read the horror story about the bag stolen in Barcelona right off a woman’s lap!

bag snatch Barcelona cafe handbag pickpocket spain theft

Bag Snatch Cafe

You can hardly call it bag-snatching when a handbag is left hanging on the back of a chair, free for the taking. We regularly warn people about this unsafe habit. Worse yet are bags placed under chairs. These appeal to opportunists who operate on stealth, rather than speed.

We met the Hansons in Barcelona’s American Express office. They were reporting their loss when Bob and I popped in for our irregular count of stolen credit cards, a useful barometer and an excellent excuse to visit the nearby Il Caffe di Francesco on Consell de Cent for superb cappuccino.

The Hansons had been enjoying a lesser brand of coffee and watching the passing people parade at Tapa-Tapa, a popular sidewalk café near Antoni Gaudi’s innovative Casa Mila apartment house.

“We were in the corner and felt safe,” Mrs. Hanson said. “There was no apparent risk. Our carry-all was on the ground between us as we sat side by side. The bag contained my purse, our camera, and some small purchases.”

Bag Snatch Cafe

Bob and I went directly over to Tapa-Tapa, just a few blocks away. Umbrellaed tables were grouped invitingly on the sidewalk. Surrounding them on three sides, a row of potted ficus trees lent an air of privacy and coziness to the setting. The Hansons had been sitting in a corner, where the dense foliage gave the impression of walls and a sense of security. Rather, gave a false sense of security.

Behind the potted plants traffic buzzed on Passeig Gracia, and a dim stairway descended to the subway. Can you see the risk now? A person crouching behind the planters might not be noticed. He could simply reach through the “wall,” possibly with the aid of a crude hook, snag the bag, and disappear into the subway.

“About five a day,” the manager of Tapas-Tapas said, when we asked him how often patrons complained of stolen bags. Five a day! Yet management saw no need to change the set-up, and police paid no extra attention to the area.

Cafe plants with chicken wire to protect customers' bags. — Cafe plants with chicken wire to protect customers’ bags.

Bag snatch cafe. An outdoor cafe with a little more protection from bag snatchers. — An outdoor cafe with a little more protection from bag snatchers.

Many an outdoor dining area is bordered with potted plants—it’s a typical arrangement. The close proximity of a subway entrance makes Tapas-Tapas particularly attractive to thieves, but the risk is universal. The solution is to maintain physical contact with belongings. Then you can relax, enjoy your meal, people watch, and appreciate your surroundings without worry. You can tuck a strap under your thigh, put your foot or the chair leg through it, or keep your bag between your feet. Most thieves would rather work on a less-vigilant mark.

As much as we love the city, there’s no denying that street thievery is rampant in Barcelona. Yet, bag-snatching, in one form or another, is a universal crime.

Bag-snatchers, like pickpockets, can be divided into two categories: the opportunists, who include desperate novices like my bag-snatcher, and the strategists, who create their own advantages.

Question to consider: is it better to leave your valuables in your hotel?

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Five: Rip-offs: Introducing…The Opportunist

bag snatch Barcelona cafe spain Thieves

Bangkok theft from tuk-tuk passengers

Bangkok theft has gotten bad enough that police have posted warnings about theft from tuk-tuk passengers. The convenient little auto-rickshaws, ubiquitous on the streets of Bangkok, are completely open and often stuck in traffic. Scooters can maneuver the interstices of clogged roads, sneak up on tuk-tuk passenger, then slither away between vehicles to beat an escape.

It’s a technique long in play in Italy, especially in Naples. There, targets of scippatori, the Italian version of scooter-riding bandits, are more often pedestrians. (Though the thieves have a nasty technique for stealing watches from expensive cars stuck in traffic, even with their windows closed.)

When riding in the three-wheeled open taxis, be sure to keep your bags secured, out-of-sight, or away from the perimeters.

Bangkok theft extends beyond pickpocketing and bag snatching to scams that cost the tourist serious money. Particularly prevalent are gem scams, in which the visitor is brought to a “special sale” and encouraged to buy gems for resale at huge profits in their home countries. And bar scams, and vehicle-rental scams, drink-drugging, and pseudo-cops.

Then there’s the awful shoplifting-set-up scam at Bangkok’s airport, about which I’ve already written.

As if all these Bangkok theft issues weren’t enough for a tourist to worry about, there’s more. Road safety is one of the worst in the world, with poor vehicle and driver safety standards, little if any enforcement, few ambulances, and roads too clogged for ambulances to get through anyway. Add to that wild motorcycle riders attempting to speed around traffic by veering suddenly onto sidewalks, and even pedestrians must be seriously watchful.

I strongly recommend that travelers planning to visit Thailand read the U.S. State Department’s Country Specific Information on Thailand. Like all U.S. State Department country profiles, it covers very real ongoing crime and safety issues without exaggeration.

bag snatch Bangkok scooter Thailand theft Thieves

Barcelona bag-snatch and the lucky victims

Barcelona police are eager to report a theft when they catch the thief and return the victim’s property—if the following story is any indication. Makes the statistics look good! Boosts police reputation, too! This just in from Pia, a German woman visiting Barcelona for the first time. For once, a story with a happy ending.

Something similar to those stories [on the Thiefhunters’ Barcelona Scams page] happened to me & my friend just yesterday. It was on our first trip to Barcelona & of course we’d been warned that there are a lot pickpockets around.

We went out to have dinner at Port Olímpic, had a lot of Sangria & were just about to return to our hotel at around 2.30. At a bus station on ‘Carrer d’Álaba’ two guys walked toward us. One of them seemed to be drunk, they chatted & laughed. The other one had already passed us when the first slender one blocked my way. He was smirking & didn’t let me pass by. Instead he suddenly started touching my breasts & I immediately knew we were surrounded. I tried to get him off & started running around the bus station to escape. My friend was so shocked she stood almost petrified on the sidewalk. In a split second the one harassing me ran off down the street when in the very same moment I heard my friend yell in shock & scream “Let go of my purse!”

The first man had tried to catch our attention so the other one had the chance to grab whatever we carried along!

We both followed him as fast as we could when he ran off into the opposite direction & around the corner. While my friend was wearing heels, I had taken mine off before all had started so I was faster but still too slow to catch up. (I now doubt that I would’ve had a chance against him if I had been faster. )

Just in this very moment (everything was happening so fast!) I heard another man yell something about the ‘bolso’ & saw a huge guy follow the thief. When I finally got around the second corner, the big one was holding my friend’s purse, talking fiercely to the other one. For a moment I thought they were partners but then I glimpsed the gun on the tall guy’s belt & saw him grabbing the thief at the wrist, pushing him up against the wall, telling me to stay ‘al forno’. He’d been a undercover cop!

About a minute later 2 police cars pulled up & one of the officers arrested the thief, handcuffs & all that!

My friend had finally caught up with the scene & the tall cop handed her the purse.

They asked us for names & IDs & reported the attack. Of course we were shaking all over & 2 of the police officers drove us back to the hotel, making sure we were okay & got back safe.

We had SO much luck, it’s unbelievable! Nothing was stolen & we got away with no more than a real shock. It’s really unbelievable how easily you can be a victim of crime, especially when you’re a female.?We couldn’t have prevented this from happening, that’s what the police told us, too. Those thieves were just too strong, my friend couldn’t have held on to her bag any tighter. I think it is scary to know you’re not safe anywhere from scams & attacks, not even 100m from your hotel.
But we were so very lucky to have someone help us!

God bless those brave policemen & god bless those amazingly fast & long legs of the guy who saved us! 😉

bag snatch Barcelona crime statistics police spain Thieves

Beach bag theft

I met the elderly British victim moments after her bag was stolen. She’d been sitting on the beach in Alicante, Spain, eating potato chips. Her bag was right beside her. She lowered her head for a moment, just long enough to stare at her watch—she can’t see a thing without her glasses, which were in her bag. In that moment, her bag was taken.

It was 2 p.m. on her last day in Spain.

As I walked the woman to her hotel spa where she hoped to find her husband, she tried in vain to keep the tears from flowing. She was in a panic about her glasses and getting through airports without them. I had to brief the husband, because by then the woman had lost her composure.

A policeman had written down the address where the woman could go to file a report. Do you think she’ll get in a cab and go? No, I don’t either. If anything, she’ll find a quickie glasses shop and get some distance lenses that will see her safely home. She won’t get the bifocals like those she lost, though.

The cop said he’d guess there are about five reports a day of beach bag theft. We know the elderly Brit who can’t see isn’t going to file a report. What about the twenty-something with her boyfriend? The two guys on the prowl? The cruise ship passenger who has to be back onboard at 4:00? How many will file police reports?

The beach-shack soda-seller thought he’d recognize five or six of the area’s regular bag thieves. Are there more? How many bags does each steal in a day?

The cop defined the technique as he understands it. The perp targets a bag and creeps close with his towel or blanket. He waits for the bag’s owner to move away. He covers the bag with his towel or blanket and makes off with the hidden treasure.

Not rocket surgery.

Not the only way, either. Look at our poor British victim. She didn’t leave. She didn’t nap. She just looked away.

Bags. Like wallets and smartphones, they have legs.

bag bag snatch beach spain Thieves

Pattaya’s sex tourism

Pattaya, Thailand’s got to be the seediest, one-track party-town in the world. It doesn’t pretend to be anything else. Huge signs advertising the Fcuk Inn Bar and Kiss Food and Drink make the theme obvious. Couples like this one are ubiquitous.

Hot, sweaty days are for advertising the possibilities of hot, sweaty nights. Bored “massage” girls pose on plastic chairs in front of their shops, long bare legs ending in spike-heeled evening shoes dangling in the trash-filled gutters.

Just across the narrow lanes, clusters of old, fat, ugly, white men slouch and slump over beers, gathering confidence from one another. They all look the same. They all wear floppy shorts and t-shirts and sandals. Some wear socks with their sandals. These are the tunnel-vision men those pretty Thai girls are dreaming of.

The local specialty, called ladyboys, also ogle these men. Look at the 23-year-old ladyboy pictured at left, who just had her bag snatched while riding on the back of her Italian boyfriend’s motorcycle. (A reversal of the classic Italian scippatori theft, in which the thief—not the victim—is the backseat rider.) The Italian “boyfriend” may or may not have known what was under the coy ladyboy’s skirt.

After dark the lanes explode with open-air billiards bars, tiny beer bars, bars named for your country, pole-dancing bars, and enormous “pussy bars” offering “pussy menus” and buckets of ping pong balls. Establishments large and small feature alluring girls.

The city’s other passion is food. I love the street food culture in Pattaya. Entire restaurants zip through the streets on the backs of tricycles and on motorcycle sidecars, their sauce buckets sloshing and condiments precarious. In grubby plastic baskets they carry the myriad fresh and fermented ingredients that their specialties comprise. Seductive food is cooked to order on smoky charcoal grills or stirred over car-battery-operated stoves.

Hot, ready-to-eat curries are peddled from wooden trays on the backs of bikes, single servings tied up in clear plastic baggies. Mysterious delicacies are baked in bamboo canes—the ultimate environmentally-friendly fast-food container. Longons, lychees, mangosteens, jackfruit, dragonfruit, durian—the tropical fruit displays are mouthwatering.

Whatever your pleasure, Pattaya is to drool for. Western men tend to visit for three week stays. Many or most have met their exotic girls online and come specifically to see them. They pay the girls about US$100 a night to stay with them in their hotels. They might visit their girls two or three times a year. Sometimes the couples marry and the men take the girls away to live in their Western countries.

For a beach resort town, Pattaya’s remarkably unattractive. Where trees should be, tangled electrical wires form a shadeless canopy over streets, the thick cords nearly obscuring the mosaic of signs for Cialis, Viagra, pharmacy, clinic, laundry, and rooms-for-rent. There’s nothing for the eye here—just hard-driven business: that is, the business of the sexual drive. It’s a lewd town, but an honest one, advertising what it’s about in every way it can.

bag snatch prostitution sex industry street food Thailand Thieves

Street crime in Madrid

One day in Spain and we are bombarded with sad stories, particularly of crime in Madrid.

Crime in Madrid

1. Madrid Metro: A couple in their 60s are on a train when they are surrounded. The woman has everything of value in her fanny pack. She has too much of value in her fanny pack. Not only does she have seven credit cards, her driver’s license, and her husband’s driver’s license, but she also has both their social security cards and a slip of paper with the user names and passwords for all their credit cards and banks.

Yep. All stolen. Plus lotsa cash. She felt it happening, but was too intimidated to speak up. Anyway, it happened too fast. The perps got off the train immediately, as if they’d timed the theft to coincide with the doors opening. Which, of course, they had.

Yeah, there really are people like this. Born victims, you might say.

2. Madrid Metro: Same day. A 30ish New York woman traveling with her Spanish boyfriend is hit on an escalator. She has her purse zipped into a large bag on her shoulder. Yes, the bag could have been hanging toward her back, instead of in front of her. She notices the women behind her as she is about to get on the escalator, and she notices that when she gets on, they don’t. She checks her bag and—yep. Purse gone. In it: all the couple’s cash, all their credit cards, their travel itinerary for tomorrow’s flight, the name and address of their hotel, and their passports.

Well, they do have €50. They spend the rest of the day canceling credit cards and making phone calls to recover their travel information. In the morning, they’re able to fly from Madrid to Malaga without passports. They’re to join a cruise ship, but they’re not allowed to board without their passports, and have to fly back to Madrid to visit the embassy.

3. Malaga: Next day. Another American couple, both speakers, land in Malaga and rent a car. They drive to their hotel, a small place on a small street. She goes to check in while he unloads the car. He takes out their two large suitcases and a bellman brings them into the lobby. Meanwhile, the man removes from the car a backpack and a small suitcase, and sets them down beside the car while he fiddles with the unfamiliar lock buttons on the rental car key. When he turns back to the two small bags, one is gone. He assumes the bellman picked it up.

No, the bellman hadn’t. Our friend, a frequent world traveler, hadn’t noticed anyone around him out by the car. In the stolen backpack: all their cash, credit cards, an expensive camera, a very expensive computer loaded with too much data, and the charger for their other computer, which already had a dead battery.

Tapas in Madrid; crime in madrid — Go for the tapas, but stow your stuff safely.

4. Same day, more crime in Madrid: an active woman, a practitioner of yoga, has her purse snatched in a brutal manner. She falls down and, almost two weeks later, is still in a wheelchair.

5. Same day, more crime in Madrid: a wiry, active man, 60ish, who “grew up on the wrong side of the tracks,” feels his male pickpockets working on him. I don’t know why this man carries a cane; he doesn’t appear to need one. But he has it and swings it. Three times, he bashes his accosters. “Got ’em good. They ran.”

bag snatch Madrid metro pickpocket spain street crime Thieves

Bambi’s bag snatch

[dropcap letter=”W”]as it instinct or anger that made Bob chase my bag snatcher? He rocketed down the street brandishing the famous umbrella weapon that was so ineffectual in Naples. I had managed nothing more than “Hey!,” but my weak protestation was like the starting gun at the Monaco Grand Prix. Two grown men went from zero to sixty in an instant.

Bag snatch!

I can’t say I was caught unaware when the bag snatcher stepped up to meet me, face to face. He calmly looked me in the eyes, seized the strap of my purse with both hands, and yanked it hard enough to break the leather against my shoulder. It happened much faster than you can read that sentence.

I gave my little shout and the creep was off and running, Bob on his tail. It took me several seconds to realize that I still had the purse clutched tightly in my hands. I could have laughed, but for the fact that my husband was in pursuit of a potentially dangerous criminal in a decidedly unsafe neighborhood.

The street we had walked was full of the necessities of life in this non-touristy part of Barcelona, lined with tiny hardware, shoe repair, and paint shops. We had been directed there, without any specific warning, in search of a few pieces of wood. Peeking through doorways seeking the lumberyard, we revealed ourselves as obvious outsiders. As we strayed ever further from the relative safety of La Rambla, we sensed a vague but growing threat of danger.

My antennas were out way before the interloper trespassed so suddenly into my aura. I didn’t see his approach, but I had already assumed a protective posture. Both my hands held the small purse I wore diagonally crossed over my chest.

Bob was a few steps ahead of me and didn’t see the confrontation. It only lasted two seconds. It’s astonishing what analysis and conclusions the brain can manage in those instants. I thought the man looked ordinary but grave. He stood uncomfortably close and made uncommon eye contact. I thought he would speak. I thought he would ask a question, or offer advice. Against my will, I slipped into the trusting attitude of a traveler in a foreign land. And that was my mistake.

Perhaps I’d have reacted quicker or with more suspicion if the bag snatcher had looked sleazy, mean, or desperate. But he didn’t, and I gave him the benefit of any doubt. In those two seconds, the gentleman had all the opportunity he needed to seize the strap of my bag and yank.

My feeble objection was enough to get Bob’s attention. He whirled around and leapt into pursuit, his long stride a clear advantage. When the perp dashed into a crowded alley, I thought it was all over. Bob bellowed “Policia!” at a volume that would fill an amphitheater. I, far behind, expected to see the escaping sprinter blocked or tripped by the local loiterers.

On the contrary. The sea of people opened for his getaway, then closed up again to watch the tall guy run. They didn’t exactly block Bob’s path, but seemed to plant themselves firmly as obstacles. Bob had to give up.

For me, the humiliation suffered by the would-be thief was almost enough. Like a cat with a mouthful of feathers, he ran with nothing more than twelve inches of torn leather strap in his fist. Yet, I was shaken and weak-kneed immediately following the experience, and the after effects lingered for months. Despite the fact that I wasn’t hurt, I lost nothing of value, and Bob hadn’t been tripped in the chase, I felt victimized.

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Five: Rip-Offs: Introducing… the Opportunist

bag snatch Barcelona Thieves

Pirañas: Pickpockets in Lima, Peru

A dozen boys swarmed around Gary Ferrari in front of the Sheraton Hotel in Lima. At least it seemed like a dozen—they’d appeared out of nowhere and were gone in just a few seconds. In that cyclone of baby-faces and a hundred probing fingers, they got his wallet and the gold chain from his neck.

Pickpockets in Lima

“We call them pirañas,” said Dora Pinedo, concierge at the Sheraton. “They are everywhere.”

“I don’t know how they got my chain,” said Gary, rubbing the red welt on his neck. “It was under my shirt.” He didn’t realize that the boys had learned to recognize the telltale ridge of fabric that covers any chain worth stealing.

“They’re usually seven-, eight-, nine-year-old boys,” Dora told us, “and they mob their victim in groups of six to ten. There is nothing one can do with so many little hands all over.”

We interviewed Petter Infante, 28, and Wilmer Sulca, 17, both grown-up pirañas. We found them at Lima’s University Park, where a comedy presentation was taking place in an entertainment pit, rather like a small amphitheater. Hundreds of people surrounded the pit, transfixed. Others loitered around the audience, more sat on cement benches, and many were asleep in the grass. Petter and Wilmer looked at us skeptically but agreed to talk to us after Gori, our interpreter, paid off a policeman patrolling the park.

“But not here,” Wilmer said.

“Anywhere you want,” said Bob. Right, let’s enter their lair, and let’s take our fancy equipment in with us. The five of us piled into a taxi and Wilmer instructed the driver in staccato Spanish. Where were they taking us? I looked at Gori for assurance but our fine-boned archeology-student interpreter was not a bodyguard.

Wilmer led us into a garage-like cantina, dark, deserted, music blaring, disco lights flashing. The boys ordered huge bottles of Cristal beer. Bob wired Petter with a microphone and I set up our video camera, hyper-conscious of our vulnerability—read that: scared. My eyes were glued to Petter’s left arm, a mass of parallel scars, layer upon layer of them. A cut on his wrist was gaping open, infected. I used the gash to focus the camera.

Petter's arm. Pickpockets in Lima, Peru. — Petter’s arm.

“The first thing I ever stole was a chicken,” Petter said. “I was twelve years old, alone, and hungry. I had small brothers to take care of.” Petter’s expressive face told a many-chaptered tale of violence: his snaggle teeth were edged with gold, his cheeks crosshatched with scars.

“I’m best at stealing watches. I just grab it off someone walking, then run. I’m a very fast runner. The victim could never catch me. We call this arreba tar. It means run-steal.”

He stood to demonstrate his expertise. Bob stood to be victim. “You can see there’s nothing in his front pocket, it’s flat,” Petter said. Then he did a lightning fast dip and grab into Bob’s back pocket. The wallet flew upward with a grand flourish, like the follow-through of a tennis stroke.

“We’ll steal anything,” Wilmer said, “nothing in particular. It’s all easy. It’s like a game.” Wilmer then showed the same method from Bob’s front pocket, finishing with the same exuberant flourish. “Cocagado—I’m already gone. By the time the victim realizes, we’re cocagado.”

The knife scars on Petter’s arm are like stripes on an officer’s shoulders: you have to respect him. You see he’s tough and dangerous. He started cutting himself a few years ago.

“If the police catch you, you cut yourself and they release you. They don’t want you if you’re cut and bleeding.”

“I’m on the street nine years and I never cut myself,” Wilmer said. “I don’t like to do that. We don’t have the same philosophy, Petter and I. He likes to cut himself, I do not. We think differently.”

(A police officer explained that an injured arrestee must be taken to a hospital, which requires hours of paperwork. If an arresting officer is near the end of his shift, he may not want to pursue such lengthy formalities.)

Petter and Wilmer, pickpockets in Lima, are opportunists, pirañas grown into hardened thieves. Petter thinks nothing of threatening his victims with a knife. I don’t know if he ever has or would use it. The boys’ main operative is speed.

Petter's cuts. Pickpockets in Lima, Peru. — Petter’s cuts

“We wait at the bus stops and look for someone with a good watch, or something else to take. We wait until the bus doors are ready to close then grab it and run. And sometimes we grab things through the open windows of the bus. We reach inside and grab cellphones, watches, glasses, purses, anything.”

Opportunists look for sure bets, for temptations, for the fat wallet protruding from a back pocket “like a gift,” as a pickpocket in Prague told me. “We call it …˜the other man’s pocket,'” a Russian thief revealed; “the sucker pocket,” said another. “Tourists make it too easy,” complained a man in Prague whose family members were admitted thieves.

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Five: Rip-Offs: Introducing… the Opportunist

bag snatch Lima peru Thieves