thieves – Page 11 – Thiefhunters in Paradise

A pickpocket cab scam

Traveler Tim Hopkins reports on an “ingenious cab scam theft.”

Lessons learned, disaster averted
I recently purchased two copies of your book, one for me, and one for my father. We had planned a trip to Africa, and after reading the book, I wanted to be ready! I had purchased a PacSafe Wallet Safe, with a zippered opening, and a pretty strong chain. While in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, we were victims of a cab-theft scam that was ingenious! The hotel had arranged a cab for us, and when he dropped us off at the restaurant, we exchanged cell numbers, and tested them. He said to call for our ride home, and left.

The cab scam

After dinner, we called him, and he said he’s be there in 5 minutes. Exactly five minutes later, another similar cab (they are all very dilapidated and patched-up) shows up, and flags us to come get in. Dad asked the driver if he had been sent for us, and of course he said, “yes, yes, come on!”, so we got in. As he started to roll away, he asked us where we wanted to go. I realized he wasn’t our guy, and told him to pull over and let us out. He said, “no problem”, and pulled over. Small problem, though—he had removed the inside door handles! I tried to get the door open, as did Dad from the back seat—and the guy starts to reach across my lap (I am in the front seat), pulling on some wires he had rigged in the door, yelling “push, push!,” and causing quite a fuss. He “couldn’t get it open,” and had me sit more forward, hollering and fussing, and pushing, and slid down behind me to work the door. “Push, push!” “I am pushing!,” jostle, fuss, fuss, yell—quite a scene in that little cab! Finally the door pops open, and I pop out. Dad didn’t wait for his turn, and came over the front seat and out. The guy shut the door, and took off. I reach behind me, and no wallet! Just a dangling chain, broken or cut about halfway down!

Fortunately, I had followed your advice, and this was a ‘disposable’ travel wallet, with around $100.00 worth of local money, two of my four cards, and a license; mostly very replaceable stuff. Essentially it was his to steal, and he got it! The beauty of it was that for a hundred bucks and three phone calls, I got a combat lesson in what “the fuss” feels like. We were both astounded at how we had prepared, yet were still unable to recognize the escalation of the situation. This has let to our adopting some new policies!

I also bought a Pacsafe DuffelSafe and Pacsafe backpack, which are both slash-resistant, and lockable (also with a cable for securing to an object). These were both great for the hotel and when leaving bags in the car for things like shopping or our safari.

Thanks again—you have a fascinating job.
Happy travels!
Tim and Don Hopkins

Death of a Rolex theft victim

We received another long email last Friday from a thief we know in Naples, Italy. Between his flowery prose on the trials and tribulation of the pickpocket profession, and his disclosures of the career aspirations of his young adult children, he informed us of the news that is now everywhere:

Some days ago two thugs tried to snatch the gold Rolex of an American tourist who was off a cruise ship. He died this morning at the hospital. I’m so sorry about this thing.

I’m not sure if our pickpocket friend ever has or would steal a Rolex. As far as we know, he specializes in wallets taken from pockets. Clearly, he does not see himself as a “thug;” no—they are a completely different category of thief.

The American cruise ship passenger died on May 27, never having recovered from injuries sustained when the two hoodlums tried to steal his Rolex on May 18. He’d been strolling with his wife, not far from his ship, and not long on the ground.

The thugs were scippatori, the scooter-riding bandits I’ve written much about. In fact, it was our long-ago surprise encounter with these goon-thieves that began our thiefhunting career.

How to steal a Rolex — A Rolex thief in Naples demonstrated how he jumps off his Vespa scooter and twists off the watch.

Sad but inevitable, considering the frequency of these crimes. I’m sad not only for the 66-year-old victim, Oscar Antonio Mendoza, 66, of Puerto Rico, and his family, but also sad for Naples. The city has so much to offer visitors, not least the warmth and liveliness of its populace. Its reputation as crime-infested already has the tourism industry recommending nearby towns instead of Naples.

Unlike Barcelona, where a huge crime wave largely targeting tourists is perpetrated almost exclusively by foreigners from a few specific regions, in Naples, the perpetrators are local mobsters. They are destroying their own city. (One could say that Barcelona also is destroying itself by allowing foreign robbers free reign.)

Our Napolitano pickpocket friend considers his style of robbery above the brute-force-thuggery that eventually killed the American tourist. While holding himself to certain standards, he simultaneously laments his line of work; an odd mixture of pride and shame. He is a religious man. His youngest son, he just told us, “aspires to be a priest—even a pope! It always amazes me that if he attains this vocation, can you imagine? Dad doing the borseggiatore and his son is an angel” Borseggiatore— that’s pickpocket. The irony doesn’t escape our poetic pickpocket friend.

Naples Rolex thieves

Theft in Lisbon

Starbucks has a bad rap when it comes to theft. Customers focus on their drinks, their conversations, their open computers, and thieves know it. A busy coffee shop is a mess of people coming and going, pushing between crowded tables, standing waiting, looking for seats, looking for friends, looking for loose objects…

Bob and I were in Lisbon’s bustling Starbucks, waiting for its broken internet to come back on (it never did). One lucky customer had found a nice corner with a power outlet and had dragged a chair over. He was opening his laptop when… his phone disappeared.

His reaction caught our attention, but we were dismayed that the perp hadn’t. We consider it our business to spot thieves before they strike. This time, we failed. We never saw him.

The victim said he’d set his phone down only a minute ago. Sitting beside the milk and sugar station, he hadn’t worried about the constant human traffic.

Bob looked up and saw a surveillance camera. “Get them to show you the video,” he urged the victim. But Starbucks’ manager refused to access the video unless the victim filed a police report. The victim threw up his hands in frustration. He didn’t want to spend his short time in Lisbon dealing with police and looking at surveillance tapes. He walked out.

“It’s only getting worse,” a security guard told us. He was positioned just outside the old elevator tower. “We see them every day;” he was referring to the city’s pickpockets. They don’t necessarily ride the elevator. It’s just a short walk up the hill to the lift’s viewpoint, and that’s where they wait for their prey.

That was corroborated by the security guard who keeps watch on the elevator tower. She seemed fascinated by their chosen profession, picking up on many details that others in the security business miss. All she can do when she sees pickpockets though, she said, is warn the visitors and shoo the thieves away.

It’s been two years since our last visit to Lisbon. Tram lines 15 and 28 are as crowded and infested as they were then. More buildings are boarded up and the city looks worse than ever.

Lisbon looks terribly dilapidated, its glory days over, deteriorating as we watch. Its structures are still grand, but they’re dressed like homeless derelicts, with the same empty-eyed glower, all dignity and self-respect burned off by neglect.

To quote myself.

On the other hand, the sidewalks are still spectacular.

Lisbon thieves

Pattaya’s sex tourism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

bag snatch prostitution sex industry street food Thailand thieves

Pickpocket at large in a zoo

Nutria-orange beaver rat — Source: Wikipedia.org, by Peleg

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.

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams

Chapter Five: Rip-Offs: Introducing… The Opportunist

police Stockholm thieves Travel Advisory

Revelations of a Rolex Thief

Rolex thief: A street in Quartieri Spagnoli, Naples, Italy. — A street in Quartieri Spagnoli

“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.

“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.”

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.

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

Street crime in Madrid

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

Crime in Madrid

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

bag snatch Madrid metro pickpocket spain street crime thieves

Watch-stealing

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.

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?

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

Read How to Steal a Rolex

Bob Arno Italy Naples Rolex steal thieves Travel Advisory

Where does your pickpocketed stuff go?

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.

Rarely, we’ve heard of thieves who return personal items, or credit cards. But how do the pickpockets and bag snatchers usually get rid of the goods?

You’ve heard of thieves’ markets…

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.

fence Madrid pickpocket spain thieves

How pickpockets take advantage of natural distractions

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.

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

pickpocket thieves

PICKPOCKETS, CON ARTISTS, GANGSTERS, THIEVES, AND TRAVEL

A pickpocket cab scam

The cab scam

Death of a Rolex theft victim

Theft in Lisbon

Pattaya’s sex tourism

Pickpocket at large in a zoo

Revelations of a Rolex Thief

Street crime in Madrid

Crime in Madrid

Watch-stealing

Watch-stealing

Where does your pickpocketed stuff go?

You’ve heard of thieves’ markets…

Pickpocketed stuff

How pickpockets take advantage of natural distractions

Buy our book of thieves!