strategist – Pickpocket Bob Arno

The Pigeon Poop Pickpocket Ploy

The Pigeon Poop Pickpocket Ploy as perpetrated in Barcelona is devious. We discover the original Pigeon Poop Perp, who pretends to offer goodness. In response, naturally, his victims trust.

The leisurely ploy is perpetrated by the “clean-you-off-clean-you-out” good samaritan impostor. Bob and I met many of his victims before we finally found him—or rather, he found us.

We’d been staking out a suspicious trio at Temple de la Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi’s spectacular cathedral and Barcelona’s number one tourist attraction. It was a long amble back to La Rambla. We zigzagged south and west block by block, with no particular pattern. It was a pleasant route we invented, strolling past fabulous architecture, under lush green trees, while a cool wind blew and pigeons cooed.

At the corner of Consell de Cent and Girona we saw a beautifully ornate pastry shop facade which reminded us of one in Palma de Mallorca. We decided we’d peek in, see if they served coffee. We were still debating and postulating about the pickpocket team at La Sagrada Familia as we crossed the street in front of the pasticeria.

How the pigeon poop pickpocket ploy works

As I stepped up onto the curb I felt a slight wetness on the back of my knee below the hem of my skirt, as if I had splashed in a puddle. Not impossible, since it had rained recently. The rain had actually been the day before, but I just sort of knew it had rained, in the back of my mind, without really thinking about it.

Reflex made me glance into the street for the source puddle but in that same instant I knew there was no puddle. I asked Bob to look at my back but I knew what it was. I was horrified and exalted simultaneously. We were about to meet a charlatan, a gentleman thief with a fiction, an ersatz Samaritan and the most elusive of pickpockets.

Bob confirmed my disgusted suspicion: I had thick blobs of brown yuck on the back of my clothes, and so did Bob.

In that instant of offended confusion, while we admired each other’s backsides and laughed and grimaced, before we could organize our thoughts in that tenth of a minute, a man in shorts swept up to us, map in hand, sunglassed and baseball capped.

“Iy, look,” he pointed out. We swung around. “Bird, bird.”

Where did he come from? Out of the blue, it seemed. Still, we knew who he was. We knew what he was.

“Come, I help,” he offered with compassion and authority, ushering us into the pastry shop we’d been headed for. He already had a neat pack of Kleenex tissues in one hand, a small bottle of Evian in the other. He was more prepared than we had expected. Bob put his video in record.

Employees didn’t seem surprised in the pastry shop. They observed our intrusion with the vague interest of ranch hands regarding mating dogs. The man-in-shorts pressed a tissue into Bob’s hand and turned me around by the arm.

“You clean,” he said to Bob politely but insistently, indicating my back. He didn’t want to appear unseemly. You clean her and I’ll clean you—out. That was the idea. We’d heard the story many times from victims. While the husband cleans the wife, the man-in-shorts cleans the husband. Rather, he pretends to clean the husband. What he cleans is the pockets. And disappears before you know it.

Neither of us were good researchers this time: I didn’t cooperate fully, out of repulsion. And Bob was too busy filming to do his part. He was supposed to clean me off. But every time the impostor coached Bob in his role, Bob just said okay, fussed with his new camera, and failed to come to the aid of his wife. How could he videotape the scam if he were a participant? But how could the game continue without all the players?

Our man-in-shorts got frustrated and tried to slip away. We managed to waylay him though, outside the shop. We tried to get him to talk to us, to show us his squirt contraption, to tell us where he’s from. He was insistent about no video, no camera, but he didn’t rush off too obviously. He backed away slowly, trying not to look suspicious. Finally, he broke into a little trot and dashed into the handy metro stairway. Was its proximity coincidental? We think not.

Questions about the pigeon poop pickpocket ploy and M.O.

Barcelona police, it turned out, had been looking for the man-in-shorts for years. They knew his M.O., his territory, and that he was Peruvian. And they knew he always wore shorts. That was it. They now had his scam and his face on video.

We walked back toward La Rambla looking over our shoulders, hyper-observant. Bob and I disagree on the participation of the pastry shop people. I say they were in on it. I say the man-in-shorts buys his bread there and always leaves a hefty tip. I say they were awfully quick to bring out a roll of paper towels and laundry detergent when the man-in-shorts left. I say everyone’s a suspect. Bob says it’s impossible, they couldn’t be in on it. It just happened to be the corner where opportunity struck for the man-in-shorts. He couldn’t do his thing on only one corner in all the city.

J. S. Brody, an advertising executive in New York City, was a victim of the man-in-shorts. He remembers being astonished at the amount of bird droppings on his backside and his mother’s. “What do you have here, eagles?” he’d asked. The pigeon poop pickpocket ploy had taken place several blocks away from the pasticeria. For the clean-up operation, the pigeon-poop practitioner had drawn them into the lobby of an apartment house. So much for my theory on location.

Exactly ten years later—to the week!—Bob and I were strolling in the same neighborhood when we were squirted once again. We were astonished to see recognize the very same pigeon poop pickpocket. Read about our reunion with the pigeon poop pickpocket.

Adapted from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Seven: Scams—By the Devious Strategist

How pickpockets steal from inside jacket pockets

Kharem shows how the pickpocket's partner then comes from the front, dipping into the breast pocket while the vic looks in the opposite direction. How pickpockets steal from inside jacket pockets. steal from breast pocket

Pickpocket Kharem gets the victim to look back at his right shoulder. Meanwhile, his left hand opens the victim's left front jacket, exposing the breast pocket. How pickpockets steal from inside jacket pockets. steal from breast pocket — Pickpocket Kharem gets the victim to look back at his right shoulder. Meanwhile, his left hand opens the victim’s left front jacket, exposing the breast pocket.

How pickpockets steal from inside jacket pockets usually involves the application of something disgusting, much like the pigeon poop pickpocket does. Occasionally, they use a baby—not to apply the gunk, but to stick its little hand into the male victim’s breast pocket.

Bambi plays the distractor while Kharem does the dipping. How pickpockets steal from inside jacket pockets. steal from breast pocket — Bambi plays the distractor while Kharem does the dipping.

A man’s inside breast pocket is one of the safest from pickpockets. It’s one of the hardest pockets to steal from because it’s in front, up close, in a sensitive area. Unless, of course, the jacket is hanging on the back of a chair—then it’s a piece of cake.

Clever strategist pickpockets tap directly into their victims’ emotions, the hard-wired ick factor being a useful one. Bob Arno described how, as a youth, he was “stunned at the callousness of using the primeval emotion, fear, to accomplish distraction”:

“In the early sixties leprosy was still a serious threat to the populations of India and Pakistan. It was common to see sufferers in various stages of deterioration roaming the streets of Karachi, Calcutta, Bombay, and New Delhi. Banding together, they often surrounded Western visitors coming out of banks, hotels, and churches. The sight of an outstretched hand with missing or rotting fingers usually caused people to react with horror and drop some coins, if for no other reason to get the infected limbs to go away. Compassion and revulsion metamorphosed into currency. The ploy was effective, diabolical, and unique to Pakistan and the Indian subcontinent.”

This daring face-to-face technique used to steal from inside jacket pockets, no matter how brief and fleeting, is not for every thief. It takes a certain coolness to step up to your potential victim, show him a close-up of your face, and slide your hands all over his body, like a tailor. The pickpocket keeps track of multiple streams: he’s eliciting the ick factor, acting the good Samaritan, and setting up a stealthy steal literally right under the vic’s nose. He’s probably watching out for police and witnesses at the same time. He’s probably sweating.

It doesn’t always work:

Indian Shit Trick
“We were about to cross the street in Delhi,” a British traveler told me. “It was very crowded, people pushing and going in every direction. We stepped off the curb between some parked cars which were very close together. I was just concentrating on getting through them and across the street. A man bumped into my husband as we were squeezing between the cars. He followed as we crossed the street, and as we reached the other side, he pointed to my husband’s shoe. ‘Shit,’ he said. We looked down and saw it. It was shit on my husband’s shoe. The man offered to help us clean it off, but we thought we knew what he was up to. We thought it was a scam. We’d heard that they do that, then demand huge sums of money in payment, and they don’t let you go until you pay. So we said no, and walked away with shit on the shoe.”

How pickpockets steal from inside jacket pockets

Of course [the prolific and multi-talented Barcelona pickpocket] Kharem has a version of this one. He had led us into a seedy alley, long, dim, and deserted, eager to demo, at Bob’s request, his expertise on inside jacket pockets.

“I don’t want to go much further in this direction,” I said, chicken as usual.

“Don’t worry,” our interpreter soothed me. “I know where we are.” That was Terry Jones, our Barcelona-based friend and bag-snatch authority.

Kharem stopped at a graffitied niche where a stone water fountain was the sole feature.

The only jacket among the four of us on this warm spring afternoon was Kharem’s prop, the “tool” he used over his arm. He put the jacket on Terry and took a fat brown wallet from his own pocket.

“Whose is that?” I asked him.

“Mine!” he laughed, and put it in Terry’s inside breast pocket. I should have asked whose was it.

“Wait till these people pass.” A couple ambled toward us, oblivious to all but themselves.

“Shall I do it on those tourists?” Kharem asked.

“Noooo, we’ll wait,” Bob said, and the rest of us laughed nervously.

“It takes two people,” Kharem explained. “One spits into his hand, then applies the spit onto the victim’s right shoulder.” Standing behind Terry, he showed how to “help” the victim by pointing out the mess. After indicating the shoulder to Terry, who couldn’t see that far behind him, Kharem grasped the upper right sleeve with his right hand and Terry’s left lapel with his left. With both hands, he twisted the jacket slightly around to the right.

This accomplished two necessities. It successfully turned Terry’s attention far to his right, and it intentionally made vulnerable Terry’s left inside breast pocket. With perfect timing, the “pick” of the pair, approaching from the front, would then have free access to the wallet.

How pickpockets steal from inside jacket pockets. — It’s hard not to like Kharem in conversation, but we remind ourselves: he’s a thief.

Kharem suggested I be the spitting Samaritan and, as Bob filmed and Terry cooperated, we easily stole the wallet. Kharem high-fived his new partner.

“Eeew,” I said, pulling my hand away. His was wet.

“It’s not spit!” he said. “It’s from the water fountain!” I hadn’t noticed that he’d gotten a quick drink.

Spit, shit, what’s the difference? The object is to apply a substance that the victim wants off now. Something disgusting, something staining, something smelly. In New York they use mustard. In London ice cream. Mix and match. The strategist has created his opportunity complete with an excuse to get up close and personal…to touch…to take.

Adapted from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Seven: Scams—By the Devious Strategist

pickpocket strategist Thieves

Airport danger and the strategist thief

“Did you know you’re wearing mismatched shoes?” a well-dressed Englishman said to our friend, Brooks, at London’s Heathrow airport one day.

Brooks was talking on his phone, frantic at finding out that he was supposed to be at London’s other airport, Gatwick. He locked eyes with the stranger. “I am not!” he said, refusing to be distracted. “And you’ll not succeed in grabbing my briefcase!”

Brooks had become security-obsessed hearing our tales.

“Pardon me, then. But you are.” The man walked away, intentions defeated, whatever they were.

Brooks finished his telephone call, feeling rather smug that he’d thwarted a thief who’d tried to distract him. Then he looked down at his shoes, only to see one tasseled, one buckled loafer.

Everyone knows not to leave bags unattended in airports and, lest we forget, we are relentlessly reminded by annoying announcements. Bag-stealing strategists are devious, though. Even if you aren’t looking away from your things, you may be connived into doing so. Questions by an apparently confused or puzzled foreigner touch our good-natured core and we want to help. A moment’s distraction is all an accomplice requires. Who would suspect that the pretty girl asking to borrow your pen is merely a diversion as her colleagues snag your bag?

Or, here’s a good one: you’re suddenly paged. Who would page you at an airport, possibly a foreign airport, or a stopover? Who even knows you’re there? You rush off to find the white courtesy phone, befuddled and worried. The accented voice on the line sounds unclear, yet urgent. You may be asked to write down a number, requiring some gymnastics while you extract a pen and find a scrap of paper. Have you looked away from your briefcase? Have you lost physical contact with it? Where is it, anyway?

Earlier, the thief had examined the object of his desire, your bag. Its luggage tag informed him of your name. The strategist paged you. He distracted you. He created his own plausible situation. Or, as Bob would say, he created a shituation.

Airports give the illusion of safeness, especially now with increased security. The swirling crowd of dazed travelers, lost or rushed or tired, makes a perfect haystack for the needle-like thief. Your bag might disappear before you even get inside, in all the curbside commotion. Long, tedious, check-in lines can be disorderly madness in some airports, inducing inattention when you need it most.

Computers and purses disappear, too, at airport security checkpoints. Guards have their hands full keeping order at the chaotic bottlenecks, and they’re watching for bigger fish than bag thieves. Don’t assume they’ll safeguard your bags.

Practically every television news program has shown this ruse. The scam occurs just after you’ve put your items on the belt. Before you walk through the metal detector, a stranger cuts in front as if in a hurry. The equipment buzzes and he has to back up and remove his watch, his coins, something. Meanwhile, you’re trapped in limboland and your bags are free-for-all on the so-called secure side.

If you’re traveling with another person, make a habit of this: one person goes through security first and collects her and your bags as they appear. The other waits to see that all bags go fully and safely into the x-ray machine, and watches the belt to see that it isn’t reversed, leaving your items vulnerable on the other side. If you’re alone, wait for any crowd at the checkpoint to pass, if you can, or be alert to anyone who barges in front of you after you’ve let go of your things.

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Three (part-a): Getting There—With all your Marbles

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