A thief needs only a few seconds to assume ownership of unattended riches. Those few seconds are easily found when a woman leaves her handbag in a shopping cart or baby stroller. In the time it takes to select a ripe avocado, the bag is gone and out the door.
Don’t let go of your purse!
Joyce Lerner of Miami Beach had her wallet filched from her purse while shopping in her neighborhood supermarket. It was half an hour before she got to the checkstand and realized it—an obvious window of opportunity for the thief to use her credit cards. When she reported the incident, police told her they were well-aware of gangs that came to Miami Beach every winter and worked many different supermarkets.
Shoe stores in strip malls along the Las Vegas Strip are prime locales for larcenists looking for ignored bags. In fact shoe shops everywhere beckon to the opportunist. Shoe shopping is serious business, I know, and requires intense focus. Selecting, fitting, walking across the shop, admiring, and—where’s your purse?
And, victims tell me that beauty and nail salons are targeted by thieves. Some women become relaxed and distracted, and neglect their belongings inside, or leave their purses in their cars so they won’t ruin their newly done nails. Leave it to an opportunist to exploit a loophole.
In a dim, smoky opium den, we faced the backlit profile of the Moroccan pickpocket. He barely looked at us, concentrating instead on our interpreter. Steaming glasses of sweet mint tea sat before us, packed with fresh leaves of brilliant green. Bob waited to sip his tea until I was half finished with mine—to see if I keeled over, I imagined.
We had come to the medina in Tangier in search of a pickpocket, and our hired guide had found him. Al’alla was hunched over a newspaper at the front table in the cave-like café, the only spot within bright enough for reading. After ushering us into chairs and ordering our tea, our guide and translator, Ma’halla, spoke in rapid Arabic to Al’alla: “Don’t say a word of English, my friend. Let me do all the talking. Just answer my questions in Arabic and we’ll both have money for the smoke tonight.” Well, he could have said that; but it soon became clear that Al’alla had been a skilled pickpocket in his day.
Questions tumbled eagerly from Bob, but Al’alla was no easy subject. Perhaps embarrassed by his miscreant days, he skittered and skirted the core of his story. Bob prodded, encouraged, and teased until he finally found the appropriate tool for extraction. With the glibness of a talk-show host and the sincerity of a confidence man, he proffered the camaraderie and respect of a colleague. Bob’s disingenuous smile and elegant canards came effortlessly, as if from a spurious rogue. Al’alla relaxed and, perhaps followed suit.
Pickpockets in Morocco
Al’alla had honed his talent as a child in Tangier, then traveled to Barcelona for the big time. It was the sixties, and while Tangier reveled in flower power and hippie freedom, its drugs were routed to Europe through Spain. Al’alla found picking pockets far more lucrative and infinitely safer than drug trafficking. People carried cash then, not plastic, and naiveté in travelers was more prevalent than sophistication.
On La Rambla, Barcelona’s broad and proud promenade, people strolled like clots through an artery. Kiosks of birds, flowers, and newspapers crowded the avenue. Parrots squawked, pigeons cooed, fragrances of cut lilies and hot paella wafted on the air—it’s still like that today. No one suspected the darting figure of a well-dressed gentleman, so obviously in a hurry, as he ricocheted off the moving mob.
Al’alla in his 50s still had a handsome face, though its several scars suggested a rough past. He was small and wiry with delicate hands. His soft-spoken manner and gentle composure alluded to the pretender’s persona he got away with in his furtive past. Today he worked as an electrician, and his handful of tools lay on the table as we spoke.
I’d been more than a little worried when Ma’halla first led us through the bewildering high-walled alleys of the old city. It wasn’t long before I realized we’d never find our way out alone. Was the medina really this big, or was Ma’halla confusing us with tricky detours? We lost all sense of direction.
The busy souk, with its colorful stalls of spices, brass pots, and rugs, gave way to vegetable sellers who sat on the ground shelling peas, defeathering hens, stripping mint leaves. Then there were only blind alleys, closed doors, and the occasional Arab hurrying past in his long, sweeping djellabah.
Ma’halla was not particularly savory: his face, too, was scarred, and the few teeth he possessed were red with rot. Big and muscular, he wore a cap pulled low over his bloodshot eyes. His English was good though, and he exuded a wary confidence that suited his mission.
The unnamed café was a hang-out for small-time crooks and drug addicts. A few strung-out characters packed their pipes behind us asContinue reading
On the heels of the Louvre pickpocket debacle, here’s a profile of two exuberant Roma women pickpocket beggars who tell us how they do it, who their favorite victims are, and why. They also told us how they accomplish a quick-change on the run after a theft: “I take out my ponytail,” Gemila said, “and put on lipstick.”
In Chapter One of my book, I describe how Maritza and Ravenna, children in Rome, pretend to beg under a sheet of newspaper. In Barcelona, Nezira and Gamila carry big slabs of cardboard, roughly torn from a carton. On it, scrawled in Spanish, is “No work. No money. No eat. Thank you for some money.”
The women, 31 and 28 years old, shove the cardboard horizontally into the waist area of their target and look up with enormous eyes. Under the cardboard their nimble fingers open fanny packs and rummage through pockets, unseen by their owners.
“These two are this city’s most prolific pickpocket pair,” Police officer Giorgio Pontetti told us when he sat in on our interview of them.
How is one to know desperation from deception, mendicants from impostors? One begs to eat, another begs to steal. The impostors, those who steal under the pretense of begging, can be found all across southern Europe. Some attempt to tug at heartstrings with scribbled claims of being refugees, and perhaps they are. Others have given up pretenses altogether, keeping the cardboard but omitting the written request for money. For them, any prop will do: a map, a section of old newspaper, an infant.
Yes, even an infant. A sleepy baby in a sling on the chest well communicates hunger and need. And if the woman with the baby comes close enough, the baby will act as a shield for her hands. It’s not uncommon for these babies to be in the midst of nursing at their mothers’ bare breast: all the more distracting to the victim. Irreverent? Perhaps. Deceitful? Absolutely.
Finally, it is frequently claimed that these women will sometimes toss their babies at their victims, which distracts the victims to an extreme and occupies their hands at the same time. Although we’ve heard it said many times, we cannot substantiate the assertion.
Pickpocket beggars
Beggar-thieves Nezira and Gamila had it all figured out. They had plopped their slender bodies into childlike positions on the ground, cross-legged, and dropped their jackets into a heap beside them. They were both pretty, with long dark hair and teenage faces. They squirmed restlessly, fidgeted, and repeatedly glanced up to Officer Pontetti for encouragement and approval.
Bob Arno interviews Nazira (left) and Gamila
“I go up to people,” Gamila explained. “If they say go away because they know I am going to steal from them, we just go away.” She shook her bangs out of her eyes. “But if they seem to be innocent, then I will go for them. They have no idea that I’m a bad person and want to steal money.”
Gemila
Gamila grinned, hideously transforming her pretty face into a week-old jack-o’lantern’s as she revealed her rotten teeth. She lit a cigarette.
“Japanese are hardest to steal from because they always throw up their hands and step aside,” Nezira said. “They don’t want to have anything to do with us, so it’s hard to get close. They don’t want to get involved.”
Pickpockets Nezira and Gamila
“Germans are so-so. Americans are difficult, but they have so many dollars!” Gamila laughed with embarrassment at her own daring, dipped her head, and looked at Nezira. Nezira giggled, then both fell apart, as if they couldn’t maintain seriousness for more than a few minutes at a time.
Gamila demonstrates her cardboard pickpocket method
They’re serious on the job, though. Bob used a lipstick camera which, as its name implies is the size of a lipstick, to film a similar duo. We put money-sized cut paper into an envelope, put the envelope in a fanny pack, and zipped the pouch closed. Bob wore it. Soon enough, a pair of women approached us making kissing faces, an odd combination of worried eyebrows, pursed lips, and pleading eyes. One’s cupped, begging hand steadied the cardboard balanced on her other arm. Bob held his little wide-angle lens at hip height. Under the cardboard, the film showed, the beggar-thief opened the fanny pack, removed the envelope, and closed the zipper. With a final mimed kiss and the envelope hidden beneath their cardboard, the pair wandered away.
Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. Was this M.O. used in the mid-1700s when the Mother Goose rhyme was written? Perhaps it was originally “beggar man-thief.”
When the two women saw us again half an hour later, they gave us the finger.
Pickpockets running rife in the Louvre—nothing new there. Pickpockets acting aggressively: in our 20 years of active street crime research, we’ve been flipped off, hit, spit upon, and mooned.
I hate to say this because it’s bound to be taken wrong, but the flipping off, hitting, spitting, and mooning has all been committed by Roma whom we were following and/or filming as they pickpocketed or attempted to do so. Though they are certainly not the only pickpockets in Paris or in Europe, they’re a particularly visible group. Other nationals have learned to better blend into their host cities.
The Louvre pickpockets’ M.O. is already familiar to me. They employ minors—their own or other children from the clan. The children are not in school. (The parents allow them to attend until they can read and write; then they’re yanked out so they aren’t sucked into the Gadjo (non-gypsy) ways.) The children may get caught, but must be released to their parents because they are underage. The parents yell at these children, not because they were pickpocketing—but because they were caught. The adults, when arrested, are usually held only a day or two, if at all, and then go right back to work—usually back to their favorite territories.
Roma immigrants from Romania are fleeing real persecution, abominable conditions, and pauper’s wages. They arrive in France and other European countries claiming to seek a better life for themselves and better opportunities for their children. Their vocal representatives beg for integration assistance and national governments develop programs with that intention. Yet the Roma remain outsiders. By choice, it seems.
Many (or most) are illiterate, which seriously compromises their job options. What else are they to do?
One document from a current investigation against three Romanian women illuminates the trend [crime spike]. “For at least a year, observations in Duisburg (but also nationally) show that Romanian groups (apparently family clans) are committing organized crimes on an alarming scale,” it reads. Most of the crimes involve pickpocketing or shoplifting, but there have also been cases of fraud whereby perpetrators pretend to be deaf or disabled while panhandling, then snatch wallets and mobile phones from their distracted victims. Clan leaders send out mainly young women on a “regional” basis for these activities. Poverty and Crime: Conditions Little Better for Roma Immigrants in Germany, Spiegel Online International, 10/19/12.
A crowd at the Louvre jostle to see the Mona Lisa, ignoring the prominent pickpocket warning.
The police Bob Arno and I communicate with constantly express frustration over the Roma crime wave, which is not new, but is getting worse. Criminal Roma are regularly given €300 and escorted to the border. After their paid vacations in Romania, they return to pick up where they left off.
It is difficult or impossible to discuss this issue, let alone solve it, without being politically incorrect. Perpetrators, good Roma citizens, and the press all blame a prejudiced stereotypical image. The word gypsy is all but outlawed. My 250 page book on pickpockets and street crime does not use the word once (well, once—but in a string of general references to many cultures).
Yet, despite all the denials and euphemisms, Bob and I have observed and interviewed Roma—yes, Gypsy—pickpockets all across Europe. Police we meet and police we know well struggle to dial back crime levels perpetrated by their communities. Now, Roma begging has gotten out of hand.
There is evidence that much of the begging is organised and controlled by men. The women are expected to bring in at least 50 euros a day. Some, like outside the Gare Du Nord, operate in groups of up to 15. The police believed that invalids and children, who are used to gain sympathy, are shared out between the groups. The Roma Repatriation, BBC News, 8/19/10
Countries experiencing Roma criminal gang activity are calling for the European Union to find a solution better than evictions, better than abuse, better than handouts, better than relegating the Roma to the barren fringes where they have little chance to integrate into society. But I wonder: do the Roma want to integrate into society?
NAPLES, ITALY, the week before christmas. We now have to rush to our last meeting with Franco outside Mergellina station. It’s 5:00 and Michele hustles us toward the train but I’m transfixed, feet rooted to the ground. I’m watching a living, black, organic shape in the sky as it morphs like an amoeba, low over the city. It’s huge, monstrous, yet graceful, and I know that it’s thousands of starlings flying some innate choreography, like a screensaver in the sky.
Michele calls Franco when we arrive at the station. Franco is unenthusiastic on the phone. “I have someone fixing the boiler right now. Well, Okay, I’m coming.” But as usual, he’s warm and lively when he zooms up on his scooter.
Despite his griping, Franco likes the film. He chuckles. He’s only concerned about certain people knowing what he does for a living. I presume that everyone already knows—he’s been working out in the open for decades. If Bob and I, a couple of occasionally-visiting foreigners, see him at work, it must be common knowledge. But it’s the neighbors in his building he’s concerned about, and his younger children. His two grown children were raised knowing what their father did. But it’s different with the small ones now. He knows they’re going to find out, but he wants to delay it.
The sky has turned from luminous dark blue to black. I’m freezing and dying to get off my feet, but this is clearly going to be a long meeting, standing here in front of the train station, circling Franco’s scooter. Franco’s phone interrupts us continuously. He wanders a few steps away to take calls, but speaks loudly.
Franco has a serious question. He asks if we think he looks like a pickpocket. We say no, not at all. He looks like an ordinary man, trustworthy. Franco likes this, and says that’s his goal. That’s why he carries no tool. The tool makes him recognizable.
I notice how very beautiful this piazza is. The surrounding buildings are immaculate, brightly painted, and warmly lit. The trees are heavy with ripe oranges so perfect they look fake.
Franco speaks sadly about his wife’s depression, that possibly it’s a form of relief: it’s okay for her to fall apart now because he is finally healthy. It is ironic, because all the times he was drug-sick or in jail, his wife had to hold the family and finances together. Bob insists she is sad because of his profession, and her worry that he can go to jail at any time. Franco says no, he hasn’t been arrested in ten years.
About teamwork, Franco says his brother is an excellent Nona (blocker) and has a gift for reading the body language and mood of marks. He can separate a couple swiftly, which is exactly what the pickpocket needs. Franco sashays gracefully between Bob and me, making me spin away. But his brother wants to do the extraction, and that he is not too good at. This causes rifts and family arguments. Bob later describes Franco’s demonstration as “smooth and practiced, like a slalom skier.”
Finally we say goodbye and Franco speeds into traffic. Michele has a lot of catching up to do translating the gist of Franco’s rants. His (Franco’s) language skills are very poor, though sometimes he is colorful and poetic. He cannot speak in Italian at all—only in the Napolitano dialect. He knows there are words out there, Michele says, so he reaches out and grabs one, though it is often the wrong one. Michele is rather colorful himself.
Together, we take the small streets back to our hotel and Michele points out what the neighborhood was like when he grew up here. It’s a long, long walk, but it warms us. We pop into bright little shops along the way and pick up cheese, bread, grapes, and that incredible licorice liqueur.
Bob Arno and Bambi explored these narrow lanes in Naples looking for, instead of pickpockets, wine, bread, cheese, fruit, and liqueur.
NAPLES, ITALY, the week before christmas. After his demonstration of hard bargaining, pickpockets Angelo and Luciano smoke on the narrow balcony while we chat in the kitchen. Shortly, Angelo announces that he needs to get back to work. He’s got a lot of christmas presents to buy. He kisses all the children again. We all trek down the dark stairwell and the thief bids his farewell with the customary kisses. The waitress spots him and begs for a photo, along with Bob. She remembers Angelo from the film, too.
The restaurant is small—maybe five tables inside, more outside when it’s warmer. Bob and I take a corner table with Luciano, Michele, and Lucca. The place is all family run. The waitress points out her father-in-law the chef, her mother-in-law, her husband. Luciano says he sometimes buys food here and brings it upstairs, when no one feels like cooking.
Luciano tells how sometimes he’d ask a mark for the time, just to get him to raise his arm and elbow. Then he’d move his own arm forward to block the mark’s arm from coming down. That gave him the moment he needed to get into the pocket. Also, when people were all bundled up in the winter, he’d knock a mark’s hat off. That’s all it took to distract him.
The pickpockets like to take most of the cash, but leave some, Luciano says. That way the victim doesn’t think he’s been pickpocketed, but wonders where his money went. Did he spend it? drop it? forget to get change? They don’t like to take a wallet, either—they like to take the money and leave the wallet if they can.
One of us asks Luciano if he ever felt bad about stealing. If he ever had regrets. He says yes, and tells about the time he stole from a man just before christmas and managed to pass off the money. The man caught him, but when the police accused him, he had no evidence on him. Still, he knew the police knew. Meanwhile, the man had begun to cry, he was so upset. He gave the money back to the victim. “Most of it,” he clarifies.
Coffee comes, then limoncello and a delicious licorice liqueur. The brand is Strega, Italian for witch.
NAPLES, ITALY, the week before christmas. Michele arrives promptly at Circumvesuviana station with his brother Lucca. Lucca’s nice to have along, and also helps translate. We cross the street and head into the market.
Luciano’s standing in his spot looking forlorn. His cigarette stand was seized by police at 10:00 this morning. Seizures usually occur about twice a year, but this is the second time this week. Between the two raids, he lost about €700 worth of cigarettes that he hadn’t yet paid for. “I haven’t done it for years, but this morning I was very tempted to go back to my old work on the trams,” Luciano said. The cigarette sales are surely illegal in some way or another. Mob-supplied, stolen, counterfeit, something. We all mourn with Luciano, though. It’s his livelihood and seems better than outright thievery. It has kept him from pickpocketing, anyway. I silently dwell on the fact that he kept his appointment with us, even though he has no business in the market, a fact that impresses me.
Up to now the news of Luciano’s loss has usurped the obvious: no Angelo. We’re disappointed that once, again, he’s failed to show up. Bob had predicted it. Angelo must be mad that Franco had more face-time in the film, he surmises.
Luciano invites us to visit his apartment, just a few blocks away. As we walk, he wonders how we located him in the market—how we knew where he stands with his cigarettes. We remind him that he told us vaguely where two-and-a-half years ago during the film shoot.
His apartment is four flights up, over a restaurant. Michele inhales deeply and suggests we have lunch here later. It’s the kind of simple neighborhood place that churns out dependably decent meals. A steady stream of motor scooters load up with take-out. We stand in the fragrant street while Luciano rings his wife and converses with her on the buildings’ intercom. Bob has pushed him to call Angelo again and Luciano is asking his wife up there to do so.
Meanwhile, a waitress at the restaurant has recognized Bob. She calls out “film,” and makes camera gestures. Bob promises her a photo later.
Eventually the five of us trudge up the four flights: Luciano, Bob, Michele, Lucca, and I. The stone steps are worn smooth and deeply concave. Though we think we have no expectations, we’re surprised at what we find upstairs. The apartment is large, spotless, and sparsely furnished. The kitchen table is long, covered with oilcloth, and dotted with ashtrays. A glass and polished wood china cabinet is filled with porcelain treasures. A magnum of wine stands on the kitchen counter. A pan of cooked tomatoes stands ready to top spaghetti. There are lots of kids of all ages, including Luciano’s grandson Giuliano (not his real name), maybe 18 years old, who is the son of Mirco (who is presently in jail and married to Luciano’s daughter Alessandra).
We get a tour: The master bedroom is kingly; ornately furnished with baroque antiques, a lavish baby crib (“there are always babies coming to visit in Naples”) and a red-and-gold striped bed suitable for royalty. I see an antique telephone and a framed photo of Luciano’s wedding on the polished bureau. We’re herded across to the bathroom, which is as big as a bedroom and includes an outrageous Jacuzzi tub surrounded by roman columns and sporting its own roof. There must be a hundred bath products on the shelves. I’m not sure what to think.
Luciano reveals that the apartment is not his, but belongs to a mobster relative who is in prison. He and his wife live there in the meantime with an assortment of other family members. “We don’t need this,” Luciano says, “we do it for the family. My wife and I would be happy with a mattress in a bare room.”
I’m touched to see his smallest granddaughters run up to him for hugs and whispers. He’s a thief—or a former thief—and a beloved family man.
Bob does some magic tricks for the kids. They’re delighted, as are the adults, and beg for repeats. Everyone who’s remotely old enough is smoking. In the middle of the tricks, in walks Angelo, like a hurricane—and like a celebrity. He’s wearing a cheap suit that doesn’t fit him very well. On second glance, I notice that the jacket doesn’t match the trousers. He’s wearing a bold blue tie and a hat pulled down low. “It’s warmer to dress like this in winter,” he explains, and the hat partially hides his face.
Angelo makes the rounds with hugs and kisses like the favorite uncle he must be. Right away he agrees to participate in our undefined film project. He makes it clear though, that this time he wants big money. He pulls a scrap from his wallet and shows us a phone number: he’s been called by producer in Milano but, he says, he’ll “only do a film with Bob Arno.” He’s famoso now. People recognize him from the film, and he has “molti fans,” He’s even been asked for his autograph. He rubs his thumb over two fingertips and raises his chin.
Angelo, left, and Michele, right.
The kitchen has become chaotic with all the company and excited children. Michele is busy translating for Bob and Angelo. Lucca is translating miscellaneous scraps of conversation for me. I’m feeling faint from the smoke. We’re invited to eat something, drink something, but we decline, not wanting to impact the family even more than we have.
NAPLES, ITALY, the week before christmas. Leaving our hotel at 12:30 to meet Michele for our 1:30 appointment with Luciano, we pass by the San Carlo bus stop; it’s unavoidably on the way to where we’re going. As we approach the bus stop, a bus pulls in and off jumps Franco. We give him a subtle greeting. He’s friendly, polite, but also subtle, just pointing to his watch to indicate our 4:30 meeting time. Clearly, he does not want to linger with us. We keep walking, barely breaking stride. It feels a little like we’re undercover colleagues exchanging a mumbled secret in a black-and-white spy film, pretending we don’t know each other. It really is an odd coincidence though: we and Franco converging unplanned on a single point in this large city.
Talkative pacco men
We continue around a few corners and there at Maritime we run into another team of pacco men, a pair we’ve never seen before. They offer an iPad, quickly adding “no bandito,” only €250. When that doesn’t work they flash an iPhone 5. Both devices are in slim black cases. Bob tells the pair that his friends are pacco men. He pantomimes a few switchy-moves. The duo’s faces go blank, then they smile and say their names: Antonio and Enzo. “No—Francesco!” the one called Enzo corrects quickly. Was it an honest mistake by his pal? An alias? Did Antonio use his partner’s real name by accident? Or did the partner want to forgo aliases?
How the bait-and-switch is done
Antonio suggests coffee; we don’t have time, though we’d have loved to linger with these men. Lacking time to finesse it, Bob just flat-out asks how they do their switch and, to our surprise, they show us, amid much nervous laughter. It’s now basically a one-man job. The seller drops the iPad, in its black cover, into a messenger bag he carries low, in front. Immediately, he pulls out the dummy which is in an identical black cover. The cover’s zipper has been glued shut, which buys the thieves precious minutes to get away after a sale.
Proud of the smooth moves he uses to rip-off buyers
Antonio and Enzo-Francesco are apologetic about their work, explaining that they don’t like it but there are no jobs in Naples. Unemployment among young people is almost 50%. The pacco men ask if we’d like to go eat with them. We point to our watches and to the nearby tram. It’s a shame we don’t have time. We leave them and dash to the tram. Bob has had his glasses camera running.
NAPLES, ITALY, the week before christmas. At the Piazza Garibaldi bus stop outside the main train station Michele goes to buy a bus ticket while Bob and I scrutinize people. We spot a scary-looking hooked-nose pickpocket we’ve filmed but never met. He recognizes us and turns his back, steps behind a column. I inch forward to look at him; he retreats.
Across the street we identify Nuncio, the pickpocket-in-a-business-man-disguise who Bob stole a tie from so many years ago. Last time we saw Nuncio he greeted us with hugs and kisses. Michele and I trot across the street to speak with him. As Nuncio hops on a bus, Michele asks if we can speak for two minutes. “Not even one second!” Nuncio says with venom. Michele is unnerved.
Hooknose remains at the bus stop. Bob pushes Michele to go alone to request a conversation with him. Hooknose says “Get away with your cameras. You’ve already ruined five families!” Gentle Michele is shaken. I am shaken. We’re finding out how Naples’ thieves react to us after the broadcast of our film. Those who were in it: warmly. Those who weren’t: hostile.
The three of us take the subway to Montesanto in Quartieri Spagnoli to meet the famous screenwriters. Five of us settle into a corner table at a nearby nameless restaurant. The meal is simple and delicious: pasta, octopus, fish, and an assortment of vegetables. The restaurant entrance is lined with huge jugs of homemade limoncello. Bob and the screenwriters hit it off and our film is a step closer to reality.
We leave lunch to return to our hotel at 4:30 with little time to spare. Then we tram back to Circumvesuviana station at 5:30 to meet Michele and go back to see Luciano in the market with, hopefully, Angelo. Luciano is there with his wife again, and grown daughter Alessandra (not her real name), who is lounging on her Vespa. Alessandra is married to Mirco, another of the pickpockets in our film, currently in jail. (Mirco used a bank card from a stolen wallet at an ATM, and was IDed by the ATM surveillance video.)
Angelo could not make it: “he is in Roma. Will come tomorrow.” Bob is very disappointed and believes Angelo is avoiding us. But Luciano is full of more stories from his early days. Alessandra listens without much interest. I’m losing interest, too—it’s cold and I’ve been on my feet for days. Luciano says we should return at 1:30 tomorrow to meet Angelo. Bob is certain Angelo will not show up.
Leaving the market we once again pass through the Piazza Garibaldi bus stop outside the main train station, where Michele will catch his train home. Michele and I are a little spooked being there, after the chilling reception of the thieves earlier. I’m queasy standing there as we debrief, and cold, and feeling sensory-overload. We finally say goodnight to Michele. Bob and I walk down Corso Umberto toward our hotel, which is far away. Two blocks later, we find pacco men.
They’re selling iPads. Bob schmoozes with the very handsome seller, but they don’t have a common language. The pacco man phones his friend who is nearby and speaks English. The friend zooms up on a scooter driven by his wife and, before even arriving, waves and shouts that he remembers us from 5-6 years ago. He introduces himself as Carlos. We talk about the pacco business, which is the bait-and-switch business, just another form of stealing. We talk about the job market, or lack thereof, and life in Napoli.
After 15 minutes, I use Carlos’s real name, which I remember from May of 2002: Dante (another fake name I’m using for this story). He’s floored. “How do you know my name?! He’s amazed, shocked, impressed, and this adds a further level of trust and friendliness. Remembering a man’s name goes a long way in a nefarious reunion; even criminals are proud to be remembered.
Dante tells us he makes about €500 a week in the iPhone and iPad pacco trade. He said it’s getting harder because people know the trick. Bob asks the guys to demonstrate the switch. Dante demands €30 apiece for the three of them; we decline.
It’s only 8 p.m. but it’s been a very long, very standing day. An overwhelming day. Still, we choose to walk the long distance back, and decide to try the restaurant Nennella in Quartieri Spagnoli for dinner. We have more valuables on us tonight, but the restaurant is only a few blocks into the danger zone. We’re in luck: though there’s a big crowd waiting to get in, we’re only two and there’s a table for us right away. The place is all about fun. It used to be known for incredibly cheap good food. It’s still cheap, still good, not great. The entertaining waiters sing, dance, pantomime and inspire a lively, disorganized atmosphere. When a diner leaves a tip, he’s asked to throw it into a communal tip basket which is lowered from the ceiling by a rope, and all the waiters yell out “Grazie!”
A spontaneous sing-a-long in Nenella’s little dining room.
A serious security-risk, especially when cavorting with thieves. Stash in pickpocket-proof underwear.
NAPLES, ITALY, the week before christmas. We take the tram to Circumvesuviana train station to meet Michele, with whom we intend to go find Luciano. Michele is late, stuck in traffic, so we go look for Luciano ourselves. The market is gorgeous, in a lively, primitive way. I’m not much use looking for Luciano if I’m ogling lush mounds of vegetables, shallow round trays of exotic shellfish in constantly freshened water, whole huge fish, and octopuses in five sizes. But we’re surprised to actually find Luciano and his cigarette stand. We had no idea what to look for: a shop? a kiosk? All we knew was that he sold cigarettes in the market somewhere.
We find him between the cabbages and bread loaves, across from a table of bras. His “stand” turns out to be a 15 x 20-inch tray containing 25-30 cigarette packs, which is set on an upturned carton. The cigarettes must be counterfeit or stolen, but we don’t know and we don’t ask. We wonder how he can make a living selling this small-profit item in such small numbers. Is it a front for something else?
Luciano is 63 now but he doesn’t look it. He didn’t look like 48 back when we first met him. His hair has almost no gray and his face is smooth, but his eyes are small and sad. I can’t tell if he’s surprised to see us or if he had an underworld heads-up. He introduces us to his wife and she mans the stand while he takes us to get coffee. We clown around a bit with the bartender, who recognizes us from the film. Luciano won’t allow us to pay for the coffee. As always, conversation with him is severely limited without a translator. We leave him at his stand and go wait for Michele at the train station.
Luciano speaks through Michele for hours. He’s taken aback when I remind him that we first met 14 years ago. He reminisces about our past meetings, including details I thought he’d have forgotten. Like the time he ran from us when we found him at work on a tram, then stopped, remembering us four blocks away and waiting for us to catch up.
Now we learn that Luciano was the first in his gang to start pickpocketing; that he was taught by Massimo Leo (not his real name), who is lionized as the best in town (and therefore the world). Massimo Leo is 56-58 now; in jail—or not, depending on who’s talking. In the beginning of his career Luciano made a lot of money. He bought a nice house, a car, good clothes, and luxuries. His friends saw him with all these things and wanted to join the trade and work with him. Eventually, he got sucked into gambling and lost everything.
Luciano lives just two minutes’ walk away. Bob wants to see his home and, more than that, he wants to meet Luciano’s brother Angelo. Luciano says come back at 5:30, Angelo will come.
