The Nocturnal Sting and the Bite
Skansen, Stockholm’s outdoor museum, suffered a nasty spate of pickpocketing incidents one midsummer. Up to eight known incidents a day occurred within the dark confines of the nocturnal animal exhibit, a part of Skansen’s aquarium.
Jonas Wahlström, owner of the Månskenshallen (Moonshine Hall), had an idea. He placed a particularly irritable five-pound Australian beaver rat into the shoulder-bag of an aquarium employee, and had her mingle with visitors at the exhibit.
An earthy smell permeated the cave-like area, and the only light came from the dimly-lit habitats. Visitors tended to murmur softly, as if they might otherwise disturb the animals. Therefore, it was shocking to everyone when a deathly human scream erupted and a heavy animal shot up toward the low ceiling before thudding to the ground.
There was havoc, of course. Visitors screamed and clumped together as far as possible from the hubbub, too curious to flee. When the poor animal fell, the aquarium employee who had been wearing it dropped to the floor and trapped it with her shoulder-bag before it could cause further harm to anyone else or itself. No one saw the man who screamed.
The badly bitten pickpocket left a trail of blood on his way out, and it is a testament to Swedish mentality that he escaped so easily. The trap was laid, the bait was fresh, the exits unguarded.
“You remember that famous movie, the one shot in Naples?” shouted Officer DC. “In this restaurant they filmed that movie. The whole world knows this section of Napoli.” He gunned his motorcycle and he, with Bob on the back, left me in the dust on the back of Officer M’s bike.
DC and M are Falchi—Falcons—two of Naples’ anti-theft plainclothes motorcycle warriors. The squad was launched in 1995 to fight, among other criminals, scippatori, the pickpockets and purse-snatchers who operate on motor scooters. Patrolling the city on souped-up motorcycles, the Falcons fight speed with speed, power with power, and strength with strength.
Our motorcycle excursion through Quartieri Spagnoli was not exactly a wind-in-the-hair power-ride, but it was bracing, a cop’s-eye view and guided tour of one huge crime scene. Hugging the backs of these brawny, spiky-haired, Levi-clad, cool dudes, we felt immune to danger—there, at ground level, but in a protective bubble.
Bob and DC had stopped to talk with a guy on a Vespa as M and I caught up with them.
Officer DC, Bob Arno, and a Rolex thief
“This is AS, one of the best scippatori,” DC said. “He’s an expert with Rolexes.” The cop turned to AS: “These are two journalists from America. They want to interview you.”
“What are you doing here?”
“We’re making a touristic tour,” DC said with a sweeping gesture.
“How many Rolexes do you take?” Bob asked. He had a video camera in his hand but it was pointed at the ground.
“In a week? It depends. Where are they going to show this movie?”
“In America. In Las Vegas. Hey—this man is better than you at stealing!”
AS didn’t react. “Are you filming this? Are you filming me and everything?”
“How many watches do you take in a week?” Bob persisted.
“I take maybe ten Rolexes in one week. Hey, I don’t like this movie you’re making. You’re going to show a bad image of Napoli.”
“This guy makes films about crime in all different cities. Quartieri Spagnoli will be famous in America.”
“AS, how much do you get for one Rolex?”
“$16,000 [in US$]. For, you know, the one with diamonds all around.”
“Now we are friends with Bob. We can visit him in America!” Officer DC started his bike.
“Can I call you on the phone?” Bob asked. “Later, when I find someone to speak Italian for me?”
“No, I don’t want to give you my phone number.”
“Bob is okay, we’ve known him for many years.” Translation: give him your number.
“Okay, you can call me. Here’s my number.”
“Why is it different? Is it new?”
“Ah, I changed the SIM card.” Translation: I’m using a different stolen phone.
Bob and I had wanted a good look at Quartieri Spagnoli ever since our unexpected introduction to a trio of scippatori—from behind. We’d heard from other officers that the police don’t even go into this district except in squads of four or more. It was a war zone, they told us. Neapolitans disown Quartieri Spagnoli as other Italians disown Naples.
As we rode through the narrow lanes, DC told us about his symbiotic relationship with AS.
“AS has a lot of respect for me, that is why he gave you his number. He gives me information about the criminals here. We cooperate.”
A Rolex thief and a cop
AS is an informer—he rats on major drug activity. In exchange, the Falchi close their eyes to AS’s vocation. Unless, that is, a tourist comes complaining to the police about a Rolex theft. In those cases, Officer DC can have a chat with AS, and AS can do some digging, find out who did the swipe, and try to recover the item. Not that it always works….
DC stopped his bike to point out some of the quarter’s highlights.
“Look at all the laundry hanging from the balconies. Typical for this area. And here, this is one of the squares where the mob is very big, the Camorra. They all have their own areas and their own crimes—drugs, prostitution, stealing…”
“Do the grandmothers really sit in the upper windows watching for Rolexes?” I asked. It sounded like a myth, but I’d heard many times that theft here was a family affair.
Someone whistled—the piercing, two-finger type.
“That means police,” DC said. “They’re warning their friends that we’re here. Yes, the women sit on their balconies and when they see something to steal they call their sons or grandsons to come by on their scooters. It’s true.” He twisted around to look at Bob. “You must be careful with your video camera. These are gangs of thieves we’re passing and they’re looking at it. They can steal it.”
We paused in front of the funicular, the very one that inspired the classic Neapolitan song “Funiculi, Funicula.”
“Here in Piazza Montesanto there are many pickpockets, near the underground station. They steal many wallets in this area. And the funiculare is here. We have four video cameras watching this Piazza. There’s a lot of drug dealing here, too.”
Most tourists never venture into these areas of Naples’ old town and, but for the threat of theft, it’s a shame. Although we have no excuse to describe them in this book about criminals, most Napolitanos are warm and welcoming toward visitors; Bob and I adore their casual, urbane tradition. With its lively outdoor culture and its heart on its sleeve, Quartieri Spagnoli is the heart and soul of the place I call the city of hugs and thugs.
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.
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.”
A Rolex thief demonstrates how a watch is grabbed, twisted, and broken during a steal.
Wristwatches are a classic subject of seizure. The problem is not widespread, but concentrated largely in specific locales. Naples, Italy, is only one of them.
José, a day visitor there, stopped on Via Toledo to photograph a colorful produce stand. As he walked away with his wife, his Rolex was snatched from his wrist. He turned in time to see a teenage boy running up into the narrow alleys of Quartieri Spagnoli, bystanders watching with no apparent concern.
A cruise ship captain had his Rolex ripped off from the perceived safety of a taxi stopped in traffic, as he rested his arm on the open window. And a grocer we met, a Napolitano, said the motorcycle bandits, scippatori, had tried to grab his Rolex four times, and finally succeeded. He had a new one now, but showed us the cheap watch he switched to before leaving his store every day with the Rolex in his pocket.
In Caracas, 17 members of an organized tour paused in a square to view a statue of Bolivar. While the tour guide lectured, a pair of men in business suits jumped a Japanese couple who stood at the back of the group. They were wrestled to the ground, their Rolexes pried off their wrists, and the well-dressed thieves on their escape before anyone could spring into action.
Bob Arno’s multi-step steal is just as fast as a thief’s, but doesn’t break the watch.Bob Arno’s multi-step steal is just as fast as a thief’s, but doesn’t break the watch.
After watching my husband, Bob Arno, demonstrate watch steals in his show, people come up to us with wrists outstretched. “But they couldn’t get this one, could they? It’s even hard for me to unclasp.”
Watch-stealing
Bob’s theatrical techniques are totally unlike the street thieves’ methods. Bob’s stage steals are designed to climax with the surprise return of an intact watch. The thief, on the other hand, cares not if the victim notices or if the watch breaks. In the street, a watch thief gets his quick fingers under the face of the watch and pulls with a twist, snapping the tiny pins that connect the watch to its strap.
The readily recognizable Rolex is a universal symbol of wealth. Its instant ID factor makes it not only a conspicuous target, but highly desirable on the second-hand market. Even a fraction of its “hot” price brings big bucks to the thief and the fence.
Outside of Naples, in South Africa, Brazil, and England for example, seizure of Rolex watches is big business often perpetrated by Nigerian gangs, who send shipments of these status symbols to eager dealers in the Middle East. Who would guess that watch-snatching was so organized, so global?
Jewelry, watches, pens, wallets… Ever wonder where all that pickpocketed stuff goes? Think Mrs. Pickpocket is decked out in your stolen pearls and Swatch, shopping with your credit card? Not likely.
Last week, Bob and I went scouting at El Rastro, the borderless Sunday market in Madrid, known for thick crowds and said to be crawling with pickpockets. Stalls and stands line street after street, block after block, hawking new and used goods, antiques, hardware, CDs, and everything else imaginable. We were pushed along with the crowd like a slow-moving river clogged with debris.
Thiefhunting is a warm-weather sport. We prowled halfheartedly in the frigid January morning. It was just above freezing and we, like everyone else, wore scarves and gloves and coats that pretty much hid pockets; only purses seemed to be possible targets.
From the wide main street lined with framework stalls sprouted side streets with wares spread on rickety tables and blankets on the ground. One of these streets was particularly crowded.
Progress was painfully slow down the middle of the street and along the sides people couldn’t move at all. The mobs were like misshapen circles pushed together—each circle a tight cluster facing inward, heads bent down.
Pickpocketed stuff
It was some time before we were able to get near enough to see what all the bent heads were looking at. Cloths were spread on the cobblestones, arrayed with the illicit sellers’ goods. Some specialized: only camera and phone batteries, SIM cards and memory chips; only power adapters.
Others displayed a meager mishmash of pens, thumbdrives, power adapters, pearls, glasses, earphones, battery chargers, watches, rings…
Strangely, we didn’t see any digital cameras, and very few mobile phones.
Many of the vendors flaunted an innocent decoy item—a pair of pants, a jacket—which they pretended to offer for sale. A few nervous men appeared to have only several items for sale, furtively flashing them from underneath their shirts.
For the most part, these sellers are not thieves—they’re fences—receivers of stolen goods. It also must be said that not all the goods are necessarily stolen.
As we pushed among knots and clots of shoppers, a wave of near-silent activity rolled in from somewhere above us. A spotter had given a signal. All the vendors scooped up their cloths full of booty and stuffed the bundles into backpacks or plastic bags. Merging into the crowd, they became invisible—an anonymous fragment of the whole.
With the sellers suddenly gone, the clumps of onlookers broke up and the congealed crowd became a flowing river. For a moment, holes were left where each seller’s cluster had stood.
One man was caught and questioned, backpack at his feet. Later, we saw him standing miserably, locked behind an iron gate with his police captors.
As with a school of fish, it goes without saying that one will be snagged, buying the others time. With the patrolling officers out of action, cloths were spread on the street again and the cycle continued.
LONDON—Anthony Powell hovered on the fringes of Princess Diana’s funeral, lifting wallets from the handbags and pockets of devastated mourners. Princess Diana’s funeral! He edged up to his grieving marks as they waited in line to photograph the brilliant floral tributes piled against the Kensington Palace gates. Powell had a female accomplice to whom he passed his ill-gotten gains. She exchanged sorrowful glances with each intended victim before stuffing their cash and valuables into a bag suspended from her waist.
At 32 years old, Anthony Powell may have been at the height of his specious career. Or perhaps he’d have gone much further, making international “business trips” in order to attend major world events where pickings are plentiful.
Like all successful pickpockets, Anthony Powell knew the operating maxim put so succinctly by Detective Crawford of New York: distraction before extraction. It’s fair to assume that most of the funeral crowd were upset, distressed, and experiencing emotional turmoil. What a perfect milieu for a pickpocket.
In court, a witness described watching the thief “twitch his fingers like a gun fighter in a cowboy film” as he reached toward a mark’s bulging hip pocket. The observant citizen had used her cellphone to call police. She forfeited the formalities of the funeral and kept her attention on the pickpockets until the police arrived. The couple was arrested and found to be carrying a large amount of cash in sterling and at least ten foreign currencies, several wallets, and credit cards not in their names.
Their apartment in southwest London was searched later on that unfortunate September 6th, and the evidence was damning. Well over a hundred empty wallets were found, and under the mattress a rainbow of currency from around the world. With typical British understatement, it was suggested at the court hearing that the couple might, perhaps, have been practicing this activity even before September 6, 1997 at Princess Diana’s funeral.
What kind of human being could prey on distraught mourners at a funeral, I wonder. How heartless must one be to prowl and pilfer on such a heart-wrenching day of international sadness? Was the man entirely lacking in compassion? Was he deranged?
“Totally unscrupulous parasites,” a judge called Powell and his partner, as they were each sentenced to three years in jail.
A thief might use a tool like this to reach into your personal sphere. More likely, he'd use a bent wire hanger.
On a trip to London, Diane Breitman went to see the hit musical Mamma Mia at Prince Edward’s Theatre in Soho. She had seat #1 in a row near the front: the seat was all the way against the left wall. The row in front of Diane was empty; the row in front of that was occupied.
During the overture, a lone man took the seat directly in front of Diane. He irritated her by humming along with the songs, so she noticed him. He also moved a lot, first slouching back, then leaning way forward, back and forth. After a while, he got up and left, bent over so as not to block others’ views.
Some time later, the woman in front of Diane, two rows ahead and also in the seat against the wall, looked back. Shockingly for a lady at the theater, she clambered over the back of her seat and got into the empty row between her seat and Diane’s. She turned to Diane.
“Did you see the man who was sitting in front of you?”
“Yes, sort of.”
“He stole my wallet!” she hissed. “My purse was on the floor at my feet, against the wall. When I looked for it, it was under and behind my seat. I only noticed because I needed a tissue.”
What sort of thief would buy an expensive ticket to the hottest play in London? Possibly one who expected to collect many rich and neglected wallets. Could he have snuck in without a ticket? Highly unlikely. Prince Edward’s Theatre is one of the few with a security staff. Guards and video surveillance, however, only monitor the lobby and chaotic sidewalk area in front of the theater. My theory is that the perpetrator bought a ticket for pittance after the show had started, from one of the resellers who loiter in front of the theater. He may have changed seats several times, and stolen several wallets. There are no cameras inside the theater. Security officers acknowledged this incident but said reports like this one are extremely rare.
They may not be rare at the Mariinskiy Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, where our friend Vladimir had arranged to take us to see Verdi’s Forces of Destiny. Well-meaning Vladimir, who wanted to treat us, had purchased “Russian” tickets, which cost a fraction of “foreigner” ticket prices. At his suggestion, we stopped speaking English as we entered the theater and tried to effect gloomy Russian expressions, but ticket-takers instantly recognized us as foreigners and rejected our tickets. Vladimir was mortified. We tried to pay full price then, but didn’t have enough rubles and the box office didn’t accept American Express, the only card we had on us. Eventually Vladimir found a sympathetic ear and we were allowed to sneak in. He’d obtained excellent seats in the historic theater.
At intermission we mingled among the audience on the mezzanine, in the lobby, and in the stairwells. We were off duty, but Bob’s trained eyes leapt to a pair of thieves in the stairwell bottleneck. It was an ideal situation for them, and what opera-goer would be on guard inside the gold-leafed glory of the Mariinskiy?
“We have many theaters and museums in St. Petersburg,” Officer Alina Kokina told us in the St. Petersburg police station. “Pickpockets love to work inside them. They like to work on foreigners. They judge from a person’s appearance how much money there might be.” She paused. “To be a pickpocket was a prestigious profession during the war. Now they just do it out of desperation.”
I’m happy to report a bag theft that ended with a smile.
Jay and Lyn Smith, of Tallahassee, took their 18-year-old son on his first trip to New York City. They took the train from the airport to Penn Station and rode the escalator up to street level.
Because they would be attending a family wedding, Lyn had brought some heirloom jewelry with her in a small purse, which she wore strapped across her back and in front of her. At the top of the escalator—classic!—the sandwich. Someone stalled at the top and a pile-up ensued, people squashing into people until the stall moved on.
That’s when Lyn’s bag must have been cut from her shoulder.
She cried, devastated by the loss of the sentimental pieces and angry with herself for having let this happen. As a former police investigator, she felt she should have known better.
Several months later a small box arrived via FedEx. The sender was identified in the top left corner as “Annie Amtrack.” Curious and mystified, Lyn and Jay opened the box. Inside was every item from Lyn’s stolen purse: her credit cards, her checkbook, the diamond bracelet and sapphire ring that had been her mother’s, her nail file, her shopping list—everything except the $300+ in cash she’d carried. All just dumped into the box.
There was also a note. Scrawled on the back of one of Lyn’s own checks, an apology: “Found on Amtrak. Needed the money. Sorry.”
The questions in this case are many; the answers are few. Did Lyn simply forget her purse on the train? (Not possible, she says.) Was it stolen on the train? On the escalator? Was “Annie” the thief, or did she merely find the thief’s leavings? If she was the thief, perhaps she was trying to balance her karma, like the muggers in Mumbai. As finder, should she have given the bag to Amtrak’s lost-and-found? As finder and returner, did she deserve to retain the cash for services rendered?
Your thoughts?
Regardless, Lyn was thrilled to have her belongings back. Now, she said, “my oldest daughter will one day have her grandmother’s ring!”
It's ten to one in mothville. Raise your antennas.
Coming down. Feels strange trying to write ordinary blog stuff after all the excitement covered in my previous 22 posts. As Bob and I now tackle the editing of photos and video of our encounters with thieves, we feel as if we’re still living the experience, still in that odd and wonderful unmentionable metropolis, and still among the pickpockets. All we’re missing is the food, though I’m not doing too bad a job myself.
Sound guy/translator Michele stayed another week in the den of thieves to be with his family (who, of course, have nothing to do with the business of thievery!). In an email, Michele mentioned an amusing coincidence (and allowed me to share it):
I took my final bus in Xxxxxx, the one that took me out of the city until next return. At the bus stop of Xxxxxxxxx, I met all our friends …“ Clay, Ed, Marc, Andy, and Frank. They were on duty and we only exchanged looks and small signs. Alone, Frank stopped by to share some last words. He once again complained about society, government, and all the universe for their infamous fate, but then, with a big smile on his face, he joined the others for the next steal. He had a final hello for you before diving deep into his daily routine of damage and bravado.
Life goes on. Nothing this primal will change. Only, we hope, the behavior of travelers, those who venture both near and far. Bob and I know our pickpocket comedy affects many and our lectures touch even more, helping to raise the antennas of wanderers. If our documentary is successful, it will put a little dent in the pockets of Frank and friends, and others like them elsewhere.
[dropcap letter=”F”]irst there was skimming, now there’s shimming,” says Kim Thomas, former Las Vegas Metro Detective, now an international authority on forgery. Information on this new credit card acquisition technique comes via a Citibank investigator.
Now, looking for parts stuck onto the front of a cash machine, which might indicate fraudulent activity, is not enough. A shimmer does the work of a skimmer, but is housed completely inside the card slot of an ATM. In other words, entirely invisible to users.
Shimming
Kim Thomas describes the shim-skimmer: “The thief makes a circuit board the size of a credit card, but approximately .1 mm thick. They use a carrier card to insert the device. Basically it is a reader-transmitter. The reader does what the usual credit card skimmer does: capture full track data. The transmitter does what bluetooth does: transmit the track data to a receiver. The technology is pretty sophisticated and will be hard to catch once it goes into mass production.”
According to Jamey Heary, Cisco Security Expert, “effective flexible shims are recently being mass produced and widely used in certain parts of Europe.” He diagrams the physical layout of this “man-in-the-middle” attack as installed inside a card-reader.
I haven’t found anyone who has actually seen one of these shimmers, but no one’s calling it just a proof-of-concept, either. It isn’t clear to me whether or not the shimmer works with U.S. credit cards that lack the chip-and-PIN. Anyone know more about this?
