Pickpocket paradise, but still requires nerve and patience
Luciano’s morning hit was tense. He had ridden the trams during what should have been rush-hour, but for the relative desertion of the business world. The city was shut, shop fronts literally shuttered and padlocked for the summer holidays. Luciano had tried and failed four times that first hour, backing off each attempt at the last second. Once the tram lurched and he bumped clumsily into his mark, and once he thought he was noticed by someone sitting nearby. The other two efforts just weren’t right—he couldn’t get the right angle.
Who are the pickpockets? Waiting to board on a blistering day.Pickpocket paradise: a tram packed to bursting, thieves squashed against victims
Pickpocket Paradise
Finally, he got close to a businessman in a sport coat. It was one of the last crowded trams of the morning. The mark was hanging onto a ceiling strap with one hand and trying to read a folded newspaper in his other. His jacket was hanging open. Luciano, hating face-to-face work, broke into a sweat. He used a floppy leather portfolio to shield his hand as he slid it against the breast pocket, where he’d seen the weight of a wallet.
His partner Stefano was so close Luciano could smell the espresso on the blocker’s breath. Yet, they never looked at one another. Luciano willed his hand to be steady and light. He willed the mark to keep reading. He hoped the leather [wallet] wouldn’t snag on a fold of fabric.
Pinching the wallet between his middle fingertip and the nail of his first finger, he slipped it out. It was a smooth move—textbook. He slid it down to thigh level along with his brown portfolio, and Stefano’s hand was ready as if by instinct. Stefano then plunged the wallet into his own deep pants pocket, and covered the bulge with a plastic grocery bag. At the next corner he stepped off the tram before it even stopped. Luciano stayed on two blocks longer, heart pounding, then got off and met Stefano midway, as usual.
Stefano had already dumped the leather. They split the proceeds equally.
“Why should the blocker get an equal share?” we had asked Luciano. “The skill is yours. The pressure is on you.”
Pickpocket partners Tony and Mario as they steal Bob Arno’s wallet
So, we’re standing at a bar near the train station, drinking espresso with pickpockets in Naples (how we got here is described in Part One of this story) right after they stole our wallet. Bob attempts to describe his profession. In a combination of French, English, and a little Italian, he tries to explain that he’s an entertainer, a performer, a stage pickpocket—which leads to…
A Misunderstanding and a Proposition
“First let me explain,” Bob said, “I work in casinos. I do big operations. I also do theaters. I am an artiste.” He looked around for someone wearing a watch. “Let me show you.”
Bob reached a long arm out to a newcomer in the bar and lifted his watch, his customary proof of comradeship.
“Oh, bravo!” Mario and Tony laughed. “He took the bus driver’s watch! Good job, well done.” The driver got his watch back and faded into the background. Is it logical, or odd, that pickpockets and bus drivers hang out at the same bar?
Stealing credit cards
“Me, I steal credit cards,” said Mario. “Visa—wait, wait, listen to this! You speak all these languages. If you work with me we’ll make so much money. I know all the cities. Florence, Venice, Viareggio…. We can work in Rome, Naples…”
Mario clearly did not capish Bob’s explanation about casinos, theaters, and artiste.
“But there’s no money in Naples!” Bob scoffed.
“No, no, here is good! Here I steal credit cards. Then I go to a shop and buy Rolexes. Rolex! You understand? Then I sell them, get money, and I share with my friends.”
Mario was convinced that Bob worked at casinos and theaters as a thief—a real artiste. It was only later that we realized the ambiguity of Bob’s earnest attempt at a job description. Unintentionally reinforcing the error, Bob laughed, bumped into Mario, and lifted the wallet from Mario’s back pocket.
Bob Arno boards a crowded tram in Naples, Italy
“Oh, I see what you do! Multi-bravo!” Mario said, and in Neapolitan explained to the bartender what had happened. “He took my wallet, he’s pretty smart! We came in here to have coffee together.” Mario didn’t mention the other part, that he’d taken Bob’s wallet first. But the bartender probably knew that.
“I have some friends at shops who help with these things. We’d make a good team, you and me. If you work with me, I can give you each a thousand dollars a day!” Yes, each! “Have you been to Ischia? To Capri?”
Mario’s cellphone rang. “Bueno. I’m by the Vesuviana. Okay, I’m coming over there. Ciao.”
Mario and Tony spoke to each other for a moment in Neapolitan, trying to figure out why Bob does this. He does it as a hobby, they concluded, just for fun.
“Madam, you want to try?” Tony offered me a taste of his almond milk, which looked intriguing but, was I going to drink from a stranger’s glass? A known thief? Bob and I were concurrently on the trail of the “yellow bomb,” in which patient thieves in Turkey spike drinks with Nembitol or benzodiazepine, then rob the knocked-out victim.
“No, grazie.” Looking at Tony, I pointed to the t-shirt he had draped over his shoulder satchel. I pointed to the t-shirt and smiled, tapped my head like “I know,” then waggled my finger and shook my head. The international pantomime worked, and Tony laughed. “No good,” he agreed, and stuffed the shirt into the satchel. I hadn’t noticed the hanging shirt when we were on the tram together but, if I had, it would have signaled “pickpocket” in a big way.
“Tomorrow I go to my family,” Mario said. “My wife is in Calabria with the children. I am driving to Calabria this evening to be with them, and I’m coming back tomorrow.”
I tried to picture this bus-working wallet-thief heading off to a seaside vacation.
“Here is my mobile phone number,” Mario said, handing Bob a piece of paper. “Call me. Any day is good.”
“But we’re leaving Napoli,” Bob began.
Mario interrupted. “Listen to me properly. The 18th and 19th of this month I will be in Florence. Florence is very, very good. I know everything about it. I can find out right away if the credit cards are good or not. And you would be a perfect partner because you speak French, English—”
“And I speak German as well,” Bob said. Wait—was he buying into this?
“So you come with your wife and we’re going to take credit cards only for Rolex. We’ll work on the train that goes from Florence to Monaco to Paris.” Mario made a stealthy swiping motion. “There’s a lot of good stuff we can do together.”
“That’s difficult for me.”
A typical coffee bar in Naples
“Listen. I get on the train that goes to these places, Vienna, Florence, Monaco, Paris. I go all day long and I take only credit cards. We make seven- to ten-thousand euros in one day. If you want, tomorrow, call me.”
Omigod. That’s nine- to thirteen-thousand dollars. Now I pictured Mario roaring down the highway in a Ferrari, adoring family eagerly awaiting the hard-working dad at their private summer villa.
“I can’t call you tomorrow, but maybe the day after. We’ll be in Venice for three days.”
“You work in Venice?” Mario looked surprised. “Okay, but you pay attention. Be careful there.”
“Yes, I know,” Bob said. By now it was too much to explain.
“If you do it properly, this is a fabulous job. Especially in Venice.”
“But there’s a vigilante group there.”
“I know, I’ve been there for Carnivale. I know the place.”
We said our good-byes and thanked Mario for the coffee.
“This is Napoli! You are my guest,” he said. Right, the same guest he’d tried to rip off half an hour ago. We ambled back to the buses, the four of us, splitting to opposite ends of the waiting passengers.
Bob and I, a bit stunned, wanted to get on the first bus that came along. As one pulled up and we moved toward the door, Mario shouted from thirty yards away: not that one, next one. Then he and Tony hopped on another and, presumably, went back to work.
Over coffee we had chided and joked with these high-end pickpockets, conversing easily in French. Having accidentally established ourselves as professional colleagues, we rode the misconception to our advantage, encouraging Mario to tell us about his world. As Mario spoke, I recorded him with a visible, hip-held video camera, which I tossed around casually. I was worried about being caught with the camera running. Bob and I were jolly and friendly, belying our nerves and disapproval. Tony was reserved, possibly due to his lack of French. Mario was enthusiastic and embracing, but was he feigning? We thought not.
Naples has a history steeped in crime and a people sincerely warm and jovial. It just might be the thievery capital of the world. I’m not sure, though; there are so many contenders. Myth and history tell us that it’s is the birthplace of pizza, but today this gritty, passionate, mob-infested city is better known for its pickpocketing. Who’s involved? Who lives in the underworld? Who’s on the fringes? It’s impossible for an outsider to know.
“Do you have any books on the Camorra crime family?” Bob asked later in a book shop.
“Camorra! The Camorra is a fantasy,” the shop owner replied dismissively. He was smiling though. In Naples, one only whispers about the Camorra.
Tony laughs nervously on the tram when asked to return Bob’s stolen wallet.
Coffee with Thieves
An August Sunday in Naples. Holiday time for all of Europe and most shops were shut. We bought bus tickets at a kiosk with our last coins, dodged the wild traffic, and crossed to the narrow center strip to wait for a crowded bus. I carried a small video camera in my hands and wore a fanny pack containing my other camera. Bob had a hidden camera, its guts stowed in a shoulder-bag he wore across his chest.
A number one bus arrived, jammed. I didn’t think we’d be able to get on. The doors jerked open and a few passengers tumbled out like crickets escaping from a child’s jar. Bob and I shuffled forward with the mob as the people onboard compacted like empties. We would never voluntarily join such a scene were it not for the call of research. This was highly unpleasant; beyond funny.
“No way. Let’s wait for another,” I said to Bob.
Tony the pickpocket would rather stay on the bus than go for coffee with his victim.
Two clean-cut middle-aged men who’d gotten off the bus were now behind us, corralling the doubtful like sheepdogs. Somehow, with their encouragement, we all got on, filling spaces we hadn’t known existed. The good samaritans kept us from bursting off the bus in the pressure while one yelled “chiude a porta, chiude a porta,” close the door!
My chest was pressed against a vertical pole. A wiry man in front of me had his back to the same pole. Glancing down, I saw his hand behind his back, blindly trying to make sense of the zipper tabs on my fanny pack, which I’d paperclipped together. I watched, half amused, half outraged at his audaciousness.
Pickpockets in Naples, Italy
We’d already made half a dozen or so tram trips that morning and had been pickpocketed on most of them. We hadn’t yet seen the same thieves twice. By now it seemed a certainty: riding a crowded bus or tram in Naples meant intimacy with a thief. Well, let me qualify that to specify buses and trams on lines that tourists might travel; specifically those stopping at the ship and ferry terminal, the archeological museum, and the train stations. Looking at the protective behavior of local passengers, bus-bandits seemed to be an accepted fact of life, as if there’s one in every crowd.
The disembodied hand couldn’t solve the puzzle in its fingertips. It dropped, or crawled away of its own accord. No success, no accusation.
Bob suddenly reached for my camera and held it high above the compressed mob, pointing down.
Pickpocket Mario, Tony’s partner, convinces Tony to go with us for coffee.
“Give back the wallet,” he said quietly. “There’s no money in it.”
“Okay, okay,” said one of the good samaritans. He handed it back with a sheepish grin below ultra-cool wraparound reflective sunglasses. In the video, you can see him lower the wallet to his thigh and check its contents.
“Come talk to us,” Bob said in French as the doors popped open. “Just talk—and coffee.”
“Café? Café?” He raised an invisible little cup to his lips, pinkie outstretched. “Okay.” But when the doors opened there was a cat-and-mouse game as we all four hopped off and on the bus with opposing motives. They were trying to ditch us. Finally Bob and I were on the ground with one of the pair while the other hung in the doorway of the bus, reluctant. “C’mon,” we all yelled to the last guy, and he finally joined us.
The men led us into a bar across the street and as we entered, I realized we had no money with us. Horrified, I pulled the last note from my pocket, not even enough for an inexpensive Italian espresso.
“No problem, you are my guests,” said the Italian who spoke French, with the hospitality of a Neapolitan. He ushered us in with the same warmth and efficiency he’d used to herd us onto the bus. He ordered three coffees, four glasses of water, and one almond milk.
“Bambi and Bob,” we introduced ourselves.
Mario, a high-end pickpocket who steals credit cards on trains to Florence, Paris, Monte Carlo.
“Mario,” said the one who spoke French. He studied us quizzically, as if he’d never been invited for coffee by a man whose wallet he’d just swiped.
“Tony,” said the reluctant other, and we all shook hands.
Mario was trim, 50ish, with smooth skin, curly salt-and-pepper hair, and a receding hairline. He wore a crisp white t-shirt tucked into blue shorts secured with a leather belt. With a watch, gold ring, cellphone, and snazzy shades, this was no lowlife, drugged-up desperado. Mario looked respectable, like anybody’s brother.
Tony was a little rounder, and clearly the junior partner. He squinted under a blue baseball cap, and—did you ever want to know where a pickpocket keeps his wallet?—in the pocket of his blue button-down shirt. It was Tony who’d first tried to take Bob’s wallet on the bus, but Mario who succeeded and slipped it to Tony.
Unlike most of the other cities we’ve visited, pickpockets in Naples are homegrown. They’re not immigrants, handy to take the rap, or despised illegals doing what they can for their very survival. These are Neapolitans practicing an age-old profession without, as far as we can tell, a shred of shame.
City of Hugs and Thugs. Naples, Italy— At the next stop, two more suspects pushed on beside me. The bus remained crowded all the way to the park before the tunnel, then loosened up a bit. All the thieves stayed aboard, determined, as a group, to get Bob’s wallet. The gray-haired man tried forever, then finally turned the job over to a colleague while he blocked and pinned Bob in a ridiculously obvious way. The tram was no longer crowded; there was no excuse for him to be so close!
None of them got it, though they tried hard. We all got off at Piazza Vittoria, the end of the line. Bob touched the gray-haired man’s shoulder and asked him to talk to us for a minute.
He tried to get away but Bob was insistent and started touching him all over and jabbering at him. A criminal crowd gathered, curious thieves, intrigued and protective of their members. I circled around them all with two cameras rolling as Bob stole the gray-hair’s cell phone, then his tie. It was perfect. He had no idea what was happening, no idea anything was gone. It was hilarious to see his confusion in the role of victim. Funny to Bob and me, and funnier still to the criminal crew.
The other pickpockets burst into laughter. After a moment’s delay, so did gray-hair. Then Bob stole his glasses and another guy’s watch. Great reactions.
That, as usual, broke the ice and established instant rapport. There were introductions all around, and a suggestion for coffee at a bar across the square. Tony, a happy, funny guy who had only two large rabbit teeth, was the most outgoing. It took us, and him, several minutes to realize we’d met before. We had coffee with him and his partner, Mario, in 2001. Tony now made a laughing phone call to Mario to tell him he was with us again.
Salvatore, the youngest, asked a lot of questions about us and what we do, and was eager to meet again. [We did meet again.] He gave us his cell phone number, and wanted to know when we’d be back. Like the others, he had missing and mostly rotten teeth. All of them seemed to love when we dropped the names of other local thieves we know. It must sort of prove that we’re okay. We talked shop as best we could with limited language. They all had a great time with us, it was obvious.
Tony showed us pictures of his wife and children. He showed us how his own wallet was wedged tightly sideways in his back pocket so it couldn’t be removed. Then he demonstrated the local specialty: removing money from a wallet without removing the wallet from the pocket. Very slick. Gray-haired Nuncio then showed how he uses his bag of newspaper to shield an inside-jacket-pocket steal (considered the most difficult).
The question remains: why did this gang of veteran thieves fail to get Bob’s wallet? Unfortunately, we couldn’t ask such a sophisticated question without an interpreter. But we’ll return, and we know where to find them. After eleven years of observing street thieves in Naples, we’ll do better interviewing now, than filming on trams.
We decided to go to the train station before the criminals took their siesta at two. Crossing Corso Garibaldi, we paused on the median strip at the tram stop. So many suspects and others we recognized stood around there, and a tram was just arriving. We couldn’t resist jumping on. It was the most crowded I’d ever been on. Thieves were everywhere, maybe 20 just around us at the back door. One, a North African, looked at Bob and said to his partner in English, “professional pickpocket.” They must have recognized us from previous visits. They got off the tram.
Bob and I didn’t look at each other, pretending we weren’t together. I kept my camera running, aimed at a small, dignified, gray-haired man in a sport coat and tie, who got close to Bob. He had neat hair, glasses, and carried a plastic bag containing newspapers as a tool for covering his dirty work. Why did I suspect him? It was more than just his tool; it was his shifty eyes, his maneuvering, and my intuition.
City of Hugs and Thugs. Naples, Italy— Bob and I estimate that we saw 50 to 60 pickpockets in two hours on the trams today. We recognized many from previous years, others are new acquaintances. We were treated to coffee three times. Bob’s wallet was stolen repeatedly, and he stole it right back each time.
The day began in the usual corner, where we saw a gang of thieves we recognized leaning against the wall. Mario was one of them. We said hello and spoke with him for a few minutes, then let him get back to work. Just then a crowded tram came along and all four pickpockets ran to catch it. They gave us a wave goodbye or a beckon to join them (I couldn’t tell which), and squeezed themselves onto the tram.
Since we were hoping to ride incognito, we waited for another tram one stop away. Lots of suspects collected around us, waiting: a short balding guy Bob thought was a boss, several North Africans, a large, portly guy, and others. As the tram approached, the big guy positioned himself behind Bob and I saw him try for Bob’s wallet, using his own shoulder bag for cover. As Bob went up the tram steps, I saw that he still had his wallet and the pocket was still buttoned. On the tram, the big guy got behind Bob and eventually took the wallet. Bob then handed me the cell phone camera (a wireless hidden camera, not a cell phone at all) and stole the cigarette pack from the thief’s shirt pocket. Then he leaned toward the big guy and said, “I’ll give you back your cigarettes if you give me back my wallet.”
City of Hugs and Thugs. Naples, Italy— Friday morning we had a friend take pictures of Bob and me getting onto crowded trams. A thief we’ve seen in years past appeared across the street. As a tram arrived, he crossed over and merged into the crowd, then positioned himself behind Bob. When we started to board, he took the prop wallet from Bob’s back pocket. We grabbed him and convinced him to talk with us for a few minutes.
He said his name was Angelo B. (sorry, can’t use real names). We had interviewed a Luciano B. in 1998, and have seen him many times since then. Angelo was Luciano’s brother. We had no common language, but enough to agree to meet back at that corner at 2:00, when Angelo could take a break from work. I didn’t believe Angelo would show up, but he did. We had an excellent interpreter with us.
Meanwhile, Angelo had met up with Mario, a thief we interviewed with his partner, Tony, in 2001. Mario told Angelo that we were okay to talk to.
There are four B. brothers, all are pickpockets. Angelo has four children, none are thieves; he won’t allow it. Luciano said the same about his in 1998. We had a lively conversation with Angelo for 20 minutes or so, and he told us we can find him working this area every day between 9 and 2. Then he goes home for lunch and a nap. He’s back working from 6 to 8. Later I realized why he and his colleagues come back in the evening. Just across the street is the ferry terminal, where daytrippers return from Capri, Ischia, and Sorrento. Many of these tourists take the tram from the ferry to the train station.
Bob stole a few things from Angelo while our friend snapped some pictures with my camera. We noticed that Angelo’s wallet was on a chain, and when he showed us his ID, we saw there was no money in his wallet. Bob suggested that he and I should visit Angelo in his home next time we visit Naples. I don’t intend to take that chance. Our interpreter also refused.
