Eiffel Tower pickpockets force landmark closing

The Eiffel Tower was closed due to pickpockets most of Friday. Once again, this so-called “petty crime” has affected tens of thousands. How many people lost a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enter the iconic site in Paris? As shown two years ago when the Louvre closed for the same reason, the pickpockets are a powerful force.

Eiffel Tower Pickpockets

You might think well, look at all the people who weren’t pickpocketed on Friday. Wrong, of course. The pickpockets fan out, targeting those same tourists who, already disappointed about missing the Eiffel Tower, congregate nearby before wandering off in the surrounding streets. The Eiffel Tower pickpockets do not take a day off. The Eiffel Tower pickpockets work the Metro, the streets, the cafés, the museums, and all the other crowded attractions in Paris. The Eiffel Tower pickpockets win.

Bob Arno and I have observed, filmed, and spoken with pickpockets for more than 20 years, and we have watched their evolution. In the 1990s in Europe, we saw a preponderance of meek young people, most of whom were dressed in cheap, gaudy, layered ensembles that made them recognizable to anyone who paid attention.

By the turn of the century, most had shed their identifiable costumes and picked up on the latest fashions, including tight jeans, slivers of exposed skin, baseball caps, silvery jewelry, and cool shades. This generation was impossible for the ordinary traveler to identify and, therefore, practiced with formidable success.

At the same time, we began to hear of horrendous violence practiced by a flood of incoming pickpockets. Active thieves we interviewed complained to us of the brute force employed by these newcomers, some of whom might be considered borderline muggers. Newspapers ran articles about jackets being set alight, ensuring that the victim would drop everything to strip and douse the flames while the thief made off with his valuables. Gangs commit robbery by choking, nearly strangling, victims. Bag snatchers pull women to the ground, breaking their bones. Rolex thieves have struggled with victims, causing the death of one tourist in 2011.

Thiefhunters in Paradise has documented this evolution, reporting on hundreds of pickpockets, their methods, and motivations.

The Eiffel Tower pickpockets, like those who worked at the Louvre two years ago, are aggressive and organized. Gangs of pickpockets gain confidence and bravado from one another, surrounding and intimidating their victims with loudness, rapid movements, and many, many hands. Awareness is not enough to resist this M.O. It is vital that valuables be stashed under clothes.

Pickpockets love Asian tourists, and Paris today is the most popular destination for the Chinese. The culture difference creates a pickpocket advantage, since Asian visitors don’t know how to fend off these aggressive thieves. Asians also may carry more cash instead of relying on credit cards to the same extent as European visitors. The credit card habit is not as extensive in China as in Europe. This makes Asian tourists especially attractive to pickpockets in Paris, and since every Chinese tourist will visit the Eiffel Tower, the equation is obvious.

Paris pickpocket police are running on hamster wheels. With great patience and persistence, they find and arrest pickpockets every day. They haul them into the station and book them into jail. Next day, they walk, free to continue their trade. They’re freed for a variety of reasons—some as trivial as the pickpocket claiming that this is his first time stealing. And he can do that repeatedly! Since he is allowed to decline both mugshot and fingerprints. The police are frustrated to distraction.

Eiffel Tower employees resorted to going on strike for much of Friday, closing down the Eiffel Tower completely, in an effort to call attention to the pickpocket situation and to get a permanent police presence at the monument. Their frustration stems from their city’s lack of political will. There simply have not been enough undercover officers working in the immediate vicinity of the Eiffel Tower.

Paris, being a large city with many tourists and many important sites to visit, has the highest number of pickpocket incidents in Europe. Authorities need to allocate protection in the form of uniformed police officers as well as undercover officers. Paris authorities currently claim there is a 25 percent decline in violent crime (think mugging and aggressive bag snatching) and 23 percent decline in pickpocketing. But street crime statistics are extremely hard to calculate and confirm, and the coming summer summer months are the real bellwether for this type of crime.

It is clear, however, that since the January terror attack France has assumed a more serious attitude to crime and how it affects tourism. But how authorities divide and assign existing law enforcement in order to combat crime is what will eventually create results. And a judicial system that truly follows up and prosecutes offenders according to the law.

In the past, perception among law enforcement officers, and the thieves themselves, has been that Paris has a lax judicial attitude. Thieves are not afraid to commit their crimes and to continue in their trade, even when they have been arrested a few times. In addition, Eiffel Tower pickpockets who specialize in stealing from Asian tourists practice a brazen technique that is especially aggressive and threatening to employees working the grounds. We know how they use “in your face” outbursts as a technique to intimidate those who warn victims of an impending attack.

BBC Newshour interviewed Bob Arno May 22 on the subject of the Eiffel Tower pickpockets. You can hear him 7:48 minutes into the Newshour.