Thieves find us. “Police, police! She took my wallet!” That’s Bob screaming at ear-splitting volume. Not his usual reaction to pickpocketing! Usually, he turns and simply asks for the wallet back. Or if he has the time, he’ll steal something else from the thief—his phone or sunglasses—and then propose a trade.

We’d noticed this thief, a lowlife drug-addled woman, at a bus stop, as she and her boyfriend lit cigarette butts plucked from the ground. The bus stop was thick with thieves, all more interesting than this desperado; Bob was hoping his wallet would attract one of the others. But the woman wormed her way through the boarding throng, cutting between Bob and me. I had the perfect view of her sloppy steal. So did our film crew.

We’re at the bus stop for “pickup shots” after the rush and excitement of the past few days. We’d found the pickpocket trio Frank, Marc, and Ed so quickly, and things progressed in such a rush, our film director realized that we needed some establishing shots and close-ups on the bus to set the scene for viewers of the documentary.

Director Kun Chang asks Bob to board the next bus, then hop off before it leaves. That’s when the junkie grabs his wallet. Bob makes a scene and the boyfriend shoves the wallet back in. Cute. Usually they just drop it on the ground. Bob gets off the bus and together, we marvel at the number of “suspects” around us. We don’t recognize any individuals from prior visits, but they all fit the pattern.

Today, though, we’re not thiefhunting, tempting as it is. We need those pickup shots, so we let the bus go without us, onboard thieves free to do their thing unwatched. Bob and I are to board the next red bus, because that’s the kind we rode two days ago with Frank, Marc, and Ed.

Here comes one. We board, along with our film crew. It’s empty—I mean, no suspects. Bob and I stand where we were when Frank & Co. found us, and the cameras get their shots. Until…
The bus stops and doors open and I glance out the window to see faces I recognize. It’s Marc, the younger of the pickpockets we’d met two days ago, and with him Andy, Marc’s uncle-by-marriage and a thief Bob and I have known for years.

We don’t expect them to board. We think they’ll see us and turn away. But no. Along with a third man we don’t recognize, they climb the stairs to work the bus.

Part one of this story. —   Next installment.

Day Two, Meeting with Thieves. It rained. We stood waiting in the drizzle in a park behind some kiddie carnival rides, pretty certain they wouldn’t show up. I mean, it’s crazy to think a pickpocket will keep an appointment anyway. Let alone in the rain.

We waited half an hour. But—we had arrived half an hour early.

Here’s where I shouldn’t say more. Just…stay tuned! The feature film will be out in about a year! But c’mon… you’ll have forgotten in a year, right? Or maybe you’ll see the film anyway, even if I kill the suspense. I can tell you…

Ed showed up first. Frank zipped up on his motorcycle moments later, and Marc came from somewhere. All prompt.

We needed the thieves to sign releases before our production company could film them. Ed had questions. We squabbled in the rain until until someone herded us under the trees where it was dryer. Our big cameras moved in and circled the group. A few men wandered in from the street, obvious friends and partners of the pickpockets. A full hour of heated philosophizing: Why do you want to see demonstrations? Why do you want to know these things? What you do on stage is totally different from what we do in the street. What we do is not something to be proud of.

Finally, an agreement is reached and releases are signed. They are “anonymous releases,” meaning that we’ll have to blur their faces. That’s such a shame. These are expressive men, with eyes you’d want to see.

The rain stops and the demonstrations begin. The men had brought their tools: floppy messenger bags, a shopping bag. jackets, caps, and sunglasses. We had brought a man in a suit as a volunteer victim.

Frank, Marc, and Ed position our victim next to a lamp post and tell him to pretend he’s on a bus. Then they take their places like dancers in a ballet, without words. Instantly and automatically, the three men position themselves around him. Their pal Clay appears and joins in. The victim is jostled a little, and we are allowed a glimpse of what the men would usually hide: Frank’s hand in the victim’s breast pocket. We see Frank’s hand drop and the wallet fall into a shopping bag that Clay holds low. None of the men look at what they’re doing. It’s all by rote and intuition.

The men split and disperse in four directions. Applause. All our film crew are beaming, thrilled on so many levels. They’ve never associated with pickpockets. They’ve never seen how a steal is done by professional criminals. They got the demo on camera. And they’re a little queasy to find that they’re amused by the technical skills of thieves.

It’s not just their technical skills, though. It’s their cooperation, their exuberance, their humanness. They’ve become the opposite of cold and faceless.

Is it okay to enjoy this? Everyone’s high-fiving and thumbs-upping. The pride of the men is rewarded with amazement and glee. The thieves are so darn likable. Can we let ourselves actually like them? Should we pretend to ourselves that we’re just pretending to like them?

The director wants another take and the team is happy to repeat the scene. They’re having fun and tickled by the director’s call: Aaaaaand… action!

There are more demonstrations: how to get money out of a wallet without removing the wallet from the pocket, how to get cash out of a pouch under trousers, how much harder it is to get a wallet out of the back pocket of jeans if the wallet is jammed in sideways.

For fun, Bob steals a belt. We see the lightbulb go on over Frank. Moneybelts! “Teach me that trick!” he says, “Please!” We didn’t mean to give him new ideas. Laughing, Bob and I imagine puzzled police officer, suddenly taking reports of stolen belts all across town.

We continue for hours. The conversation is animated. It’s like a party without the cocktails. Michele is translating, recording sound, and watching his monitor levels all at the same time, while smiling. We have two other translators, and everyone’s talking at once. Our poor director has to yell for silence more than action.

It’s past 7:00 by the time we all leave the park. I wonder what the pickpockets tell their wives when they return home without cash. We made a movie! We laughed and had fun with foreigners! Yeah, right.

Part one of this story. —   Next installment

Thiefhunting, Day One, still more. This is an old-fashioned town, lightly touched by the 21st century. Vendors ply the streets like the horse-and-buggy days my parents describe, only these peddlers drive rickety rusty trucks piled with everything from fruit to diapers to toys, and bark through muffled microphones: “come one, come all, I’ve got everything for you—cheap!” Several trucks may be wending their ways on the steep roads below our hotel, and they politely alternate their announcements.

It’s a noisy town, too. Church bells ring insistently all morning, to shake the lazy from their beds. The nightly neighborhood fireworks I’ve already mentioned (I’m watching a spectacular show just this moment from the terrace bar). Cars and motorcycles whiz by on the narrow mountain road, spewing fumes, deafening. There’s a lot of horn-honking, and frequent musical police sirens. The words “charming” and “quaint” only apply to certain aspects of the city: dining, for sure; the people, architecture, ancient culture and traditions.

The fact that the city is somewhat of an anachronism is important to this story. It explains a little bit of the pickpockets’ fascination with us, and their reaction to us. Theirs is a simple, predictable existence. Not simple as in easy; their chosen career has plenty of difficulties and complications. But simple as in routine, repetitive, and limited. There’s work, there’s family life, there’s celebration and I’m sure there’s joy and pride.

Slyly lifting a wallet from the pocket of an obvious tourist on a bus is one of the daily routines. Speaking with the victim—briefly—happens now and then. Coffee with the victim? Never. Hours of conversation? Unheard of. An outsider actually asking questions, listening, interested, non-judgmental? A total shock. And not unpleasant! Or…reason for suspicion. Is it a sting of some sort? A trap? “The system?”

The men start out fake-friendly. Then they are confused. They become curious and cagey, cautious and protective. But Bob and I are believable because we’re honest. We admit outright that we’re making a documentary. We say we’re looking for the top talent in the profession. We explain that we want to feature this job, and we need the best representatives to do it. Yes, the film will be international, and that means it will be shown here, too.

We’re listening, and the thieves are flattered. We do not fit the routine. We are a curiosity, and a surprisingly welcome intellectual stimulation. We trigger new thoughts, inspire them to say things they’ve never before put into words. We become their future dinner topic, a big thing in their day, maybe in their year. Possibly more.

We’re making a film, we tell the thieves. A film. A movie… This is a concept so remote to the people of this neighborhood, the people who live this simple-but complicated existence, they know it is impossible that the making of a film would touch them—yet it has.

Just the thought brightens their day. And they’re intrigued. Why not? Everyone in this town knows what they do. It’s no secret, they’ve been doing it their entire adult lives and even before. What’s to lose?

Bob and I prepare for the meeting in the park. Will the pickpocket gang show up? Will they really sign the required releases and demonstrate for our cameras? Fervent hope and suspense make it impossible to sleep.

Part one of this story. —    Next installment.

Thiefhunting, Day One, more. We’ve been standing in the tiny coffee bar more than an hour, speaking loudly. Eventually, the owner throws us out. No bad feelings, Michele translates—we’ve just been there long enough. Frank and Marc need to get back to work, anyway. They promise to meet us in the park tomorrow. They agree to demonstrate a few of their favorite techniques. They agree we can film them. And most important, they agree to sign releases, allowing us to show them in our film.

Warm goodbyes, and we all split. They go one way, Bob and I another, Michele-the-translator another.

Bob and I are ecstatic beyond words. On our first bus ride, we snagged a new pair of thieves and connected well with them. We’re surprised—and we’re not. After all, that’s why we chose this city for our documentary. It has the greatest concentration of pickpockets, who work the hardest, and are—we believe—the best at it.

Leaving the coffee bar, Bob and I walk blindly around a few corners. We’re all wound up and high-strung. We just want to get away, cool down, get our heads together, decompress. We want to find Michele and ask him a million questions, since he couldn’t possibly have translated everything the thieves said in the bar. And we want his impressions of the men.

A few streets away, we pause. Bob turns off his eye-glass-camera, his button-camera, and his book camera. He lifts the back of my shirt and turns off my button-cam. Our film director Kun Chang finds us, and we talk excitedly about what just happened—our meeting in the coffee bar—and tomorrow’s plans to meet in a park.

And at that exact moment, Frank and Marc approach us from across a wide street. There’s a third man with them—Ed—who was their partner on the bus with us. We stand there in the middle of a busy sidewalk and the coffee shop conversation continues, now with Ed, who turns out to be the brother of Frank. Ed is another good-looking man. At 51, he’s got a little silver in his hair, and a little bald spot. He has a distinguished look. Put a suit on him and he could con a banker out of a million bucks. But the banker might just give him the million bucks because he’s so benign, even affectionate.

I suddenly remember that all Bob’s cameras are now off and so is my button-cam. What about my purse-cam, did we ever turn it off? I can’t remember. I aim it, just in case. Another man strolls up: Clay, a colleague and team member. More of our production crew arrive, too, so we introduce the thieves to the filmmakers. Michele is translating three conversations at once, overwhelmed by the bizarreness of happy-chat with thieves, but utterly capable of interpreting the rapid-fire chatter coming at him from every direction. Hands are flying. It’s another long talk about not much, but it cements our relationship. Trust is building.

We are all to meet the next day at a time and place of their choosing. The pickpockets are to demonstrate their specialties for our documentary. They’re going to show us exactly how they steal.

Part one of this story.  —  Next installment

P.S. I haven’t had a still camera in my hands all day, so I have no images. I’m sure I have tons of video, but I don’t get to see it. In fact, our days are so full that none of us see it. Even our director of photography has time only to spot-check. But we know we’re getting great stuff.

Thiefhunting, Day One, continued. Bob and I were on a high, having found a talented pickpocket team on the first bus ride of our first day of thiefhunting—in front of our film crew. Okay—in reality, the pickpockets found us. But let us credit ourselves as talented pickpocket magnets. And let it also be noted that we do not make it easy for the thieves. There’s no wallet peeking out of Bob’s pocket. His shirt covers the pocket, too.

The five of us—two pickpockets, our sound man-cum-translator Michele, Bob, and I—order coffee in a tiny bar. The thieves pay for it immediately. They’re smiling, laughing, and so are we. Michele translates with a huge grin, first nervously, then almost joyously, as he recognizes the human side of cold, heartless criminals. It’s a revelation to him, as it once was for us.

In these moments of close contact, of talk without judgment, of sharing insider talk with outsiders, we are like any strangers conversing. But no—we are more. We are intimates, because we speak of the unspeakable. We are confidantes, understanding what most do not.

As we enter the coffee bar, the gentlemen thieves step aside to let me, the only woman, enter. I’m terrified, hyper-aware of my hidden rigging: coils of wire, two boxes of electronics at my waist. These are just the sort of gallant gents who might place a hand softly on the small of my back. A move that would turn our encounter upside down. I rush past the men and their roving hands. Hands that are comfortable in other men’s pockets, in women’s purses, on the small of my back. I feel rude in the face of their chivalry.

Introductions over coffee—so civilized. Sorry, but I must now bastardize, anglicize, and fictionalize their names. For now. Frank is the clean-cut man who stole Bob’s wallet. He’s fiftyish, nicely dressed, good-looking. He’s muscular, confident, oozing testosterone; default emotion: jovial. As I said before, we’d not have suspected him for an instant were it not for his behavior on the bus.

His partner is Marc, thirtyish, short hair, light beard as dictated by fashion, big bright eyes. Marc is a bit cagey. Cautious and observant, his eyes dart around, land for an instant, keep moving. He can pick up some of our English. He can speak a little, too. But he’s nervous and confused in this unheard-of situation.

Bob is excited and wants to cement his new relationships. He tosses me his book-cam, which I now balance on my purse-cam, carefully holding the two at slightly different angles in hope of capturing the scene. And remembering not to block my button-cam with either.

Bob pulls out his iPod Touch, on which he’s loaded a gallery of thieves: pictures of pickpockets we’ve met in this city over the years. There are twenty or so faces. Bob lets the thief take the iPod in his hand. I watch, pretty certain he doesn’t intend to dart out with it. Frank slides the photos around, showing Marc, enlarging them as he pleases. He’s dumbfounded to see all his pals on Bob’s iPod. He points, laughs, doubles over, and names each one. Then he looks up at Bob, smile gone. “Which model is this?” He raises the iPod. Old model, Bob admits. “Okay, okay. I have the new one,” Frank says, and lights up again.

As Frank flips through the photos, he comes to one of Lou, another pickpocket we know in this neighborhood whom we first met in 1998. We learn that Marc is married to Lou’s daughter. They flip to a photo of Lou’s brother, Andy—Marc’s uncle. It’s a thriving family business.

Frank chuckles: “We thought we were hunting you, but you were hunting us!”

“Twenty years ago we made a good living without the tourist,” Frank tells us. “Now because of the economy, we depend on them. For that, we are sorry.” He tells us they now use a new technique, only developed about 20 years ago, because the police complained about the thefts. “We now can steal only the money from the wallet, without taking the wallet. And we don’t take all the money—we try to leave a little.”

For the most part, they don’t use stolen credit cards, either. That would raise the crime to another level. When they do steal a wallet, they bundle credit cards, ID, even photos, and drop them into a mailbox. Lou told us the same thing in 1998. Now, the police here corroborated it.

Our film crew had gathered outside the bar and are trying to get footage however they can. Marc becomes suspicious. He calls Bob on his sunglass-cam. Bob fesses up. The mood doesn’t change in the least.

Bob explains our film project to Frank and Marc. He invites them to participate, saying they’ll be shown on big screens around the world. They’ll have to sign releases. We make an appointment: tomorrow in a park.

Part one of this story. — Next installment

Thiefhunting, Day One, continued. As we synchronize our thiefhunting plans with the film crew, I’m newly appreciative of Michele, our London-based sound recordist, who is from this city. He’s a gentleman, a perfectionist, and an invaluable translator. We’ll need him in order to talk to the pickpockets. Assuming we find any. Assuming they agree to talk to us.

We’re all driven to a point near to where Bob and I want to board a bus. We disperse like a criminal gang, each ducking into various doorways to turn on our cameras.

Bob and I linger, loiter, choose a bus, and board. It’s not crowded, not promising, we see no “suspects.” But we decide to ride to another location. We stand near the middle door. The crew scatter throughout the bus. All of us wear a veneer of nonchalance. All of us are coiled like springs, hyper-alert. Bob and I have done this a million times, but it’s the first time for our team.

At the second stop, three men board the bus. They’re clean-cut, fresh-faced men—two in their fifties, one 30ish. Bob and I don’t suspect them until they move close, crowding us—unnecessarily—against the window. Bob gives me a little squeeze, so I know something’s happening. He concentrates on the feeling behind his butt pocket, then whispers to me “done.”

As the bus approaches its next stop, Bob blatantly feels for his wallet. The pickpocket, still behind him, points to the floor, where he’d dropped it after finding it empty. He picks it up, hands it to Bob, and smiles as if Bob must have dropped it himself.

The pickpocket and one accomplice get off the bus. We follow, and all our crew jump off too. One of the thieves stays on the bus. As the two thieves stroll away, Bob and I accost them. “I do the same as you,” Bob says. He repeats it in several languages. With friendly faces, the pickpockets try to pretend they don’t understand. Bob persists and makes himself understood to some degree. But he wants full communication.

“Does anyone speak English?” he calls to the crowd. The nearest woman says no, and walks past. One man rises from where he’s lying in the grass, and volunteers to translate. It’s Michele, our sound-man, jumping into his role of anonymous translator. “How about coffee, then?” the pickpocket pair suggests. Just what we’d hoped for! And off we went.

Later, Bob described how smoothly the pickpocket had extracted the wallet on the bus. Bob said that if he hadn’t been concentrating on it, he’d never have felt it. And our crew? They got the shot from every angle. But nobody knew that until much later. There was no time to look at footage.

Part one of this story. —   Next installment

Thiefhunting, Day One. Fully half the day is spent rigging hidden cameras. I’m wearing a button camera attached to an awful button-down shirt that I force myself to wear for the cause. The camera is wired to a control pack and monitor tucked into the back of my skirt. Another wire runs into the shirt pocket where a tiny mic is attached. Another wire ends in a remote control that allows me to start and stop the camera.

I’ve got another microphone clipped to my bra—another piece of clothing I wouldn’t have worn but for the need to keep lifting my shirt for the crew rigging me. This mic is wired to another box that is tucked beside the first one on my back. This pack is a transmitter, and gets very hot. My skirt is tight now with all the equipment loaded under it, and I feel like a third-world building, draped in external wiring.

I’m carrying a purse—a little clutch bag—which contains another hidden camera. This one is a wide-angle that takes gorgeous, sharp video, especially at close range. Its bulbous lens, like a black marble, has been beautifully disguised by our crack camera pros. I put on my NABI cap (my private joke because NABI is the National Association of Bunco Investigators) add sunglasses, and I’m ready to go out and investigate some bunco.

Bob gets the same kind of button cam and mic set up. In addition, he wears a completely wireless camera built into a pair of sunglasses, that he can casually remove and keep shooting with in his hand or set on a table. Bob will also have a tiny wide-angle handheld video camera like mine. His has been carved into a paperback novel. You can’t see it at all—it’s brilliant. Our director of photography is a master. We’re told his shooting is gorgeous, too, but we haven’t seen it yet.

Fully rigged, we make a plan for our thiefhunting. Bob and I will ride public transportation. Sound and camera crew will be nearby, not too close. Film director, associate producer, and our local “fixer” will all tag along, watching, but keeping their distance. We have a few assistants, too. We’re a big group. It will be difficult to coordinate our movements while acting as strangers to one another.

Part one of this story. — Next installment

Six of us—locked into a small, sweltering room. We’d done interviews in the convent refectory all day, first Bob, then I. Some of the walls were swaddled with blankets, as was the floor. Bright lights had been burning and the room had heated steadily. It was past 8 p.m. by the time we finished and the crew began to break down equipment.

Someone had closed the iron door and we were now locked in.

This hotel, a former monastery originally carved into the mountain in the 16th century, is a warren of rock tunnels and staircases among public rooms and halls. The clean, newly plastered surfaces are a stark contrast against the ancient rough stone that is visible and usable by guests. With a flashlight, the number of nooks and crannies and almost-hidden accessways begging for exploration must be endless. Lucky for us, one of these stone backways led off a tiny nook in the side of the refectory. Up, down, and around a few corners, heads bent, and we came into the yellow light and fresh air of a tiled hall.

Part one of this story. — Next installment

“They’ve bugged our room,” I postulated to Bob in the taxi from the airport. “I bet they hid video cameras inside.” That aspect of shooting a documentary hadn’t occurred to me.

Our hotel is a former monastery carved into a hillside. With an outrageous view, it overlooks the entire city we’ve come to infiltrate. It’s a pleasing dichotomy: after years of sweaty skulking lowdown among the gritty streets, we now look down on the calm innocence of colorful rooftops which belie the commotion of the city and its criminal activities.

We opened the door of our room to find its lovely decor largely hidden behind draped cloths, booms, electrical cords, and extra light fixtures. The room’s chandelier was wrapped in pink gel (colored cellophane used to alter theatrical lighting) and cloaked in black fabric studded with clothespins. The bedside sconces were half-covered with foil. The ambiance of the room was pretty much destroyed.

The crew followed us in for a few arrival shots and immediately dismantled much of the equipment before leaving us in privacy. As soon as the door closed and we were alone, I got up to sweep the place for hidden cameras. Is that one in the middle of the gilt scrollwork of the sconce in the dressing area? What about the handles of the closet door? Behind the translucent panel covering the electrical fuses?

Entering the bathroom I stopped dead in my tracks. The ceiling lights were gelled. In the bathroom! What shots do they need in the bathroom? Nobody’s talking. At this point, we still don’t know.

Part one of this story. —    Next installment