Pickpockets in Pisa are so active we don’t even have to go looking for them. They’re right there. Are they everywhere? It seems so!

We arrived by train, stepped out of the station, and filmed the growing crowd at the bus stop across the street where the “red” bus stops before going to the Leaning Tower.

By the time the light changed and we crossed the street, the bus had arrived. Everyone heading for the Leaning Tower mobbed the bus doors. We panned our camera across the scene and inadvertently filmed a pickpocketing-in-progress.

What we got on camera took six seconds. The victim was a Japanese woman on her way to board the bus. Her husband and four children were somewhat behind her.

This is the most common scenario. The pickpocket hits during the boarding, hoping that you’ll get on the bus and he/she won’t, putting instant distance between you and him/her.

In this case, the victim felt something—she wasn’t sure what—so didn’t board.

Pickpockets in Pisa

The pickpockets were a girl and a woman. They crowded in behind the Japanese victim, who felt something and momentarily clutched her bag. At this point, analyzing the movements of the thieves on the video we got, we can only infer that the older woman dipped into the victim’s gaping shoulder bag, took the wallet, and extracted the cash from it. The victim whipped around as the pickpockets strolled away with exaggerated nonchalance. The victim hadn’t identified who the thieves were—or if there were thieves at all.

“Did they steal from you?” Bob asked, still filming.

The victim was utterly baffled. The thieves had taken her wallet, extracted all the cash, and returned the wallet.

“Why would they return it,” she wondered. She repeatedly opened her wallet to inspect the contents in disbelief. The bus departed while she and her family huddled, trying to understand what had just happened.

The victim said she had just purchased bus tickets for her family, and therefore knew that she’d had about a hundred euros. She said that that was the reason she hadn’t yet zipped her bag closed.

So why would the pickpocket return the victim’s wallet with all its credit cards and ID? We’re hearing of that occurance more and more. Yet, we know that all those documents can be monetized. They could be money in the hand of the thief.

Well, if you get your wallet back, and all its contents except the cash, you’re much less likely to bother filing a police report. You know a police report will take hours out of your day and you know you’ll never get your cash back. So what’s the point?

Meanwhile, the pickpockets in Pisa aren’t fingered. They don’t get arrested or fined. And that’s one more incident that never makes it into statistics. The city’s happy about that, and so are the police. If the pickpocket didn’t steal more than €400, and didn’t steal your property (wallet, documents), nothing will happen to her. It’s as if it never happened. That’s why I say that pickpockets are an invisible species.

“Pickpockets are an enigmatic breed. Most are never seen or felt by their victims—or anyone else. Mystery men and women (and boys and girls) moving freely among us, they’re as good as invisible. So how can they be quantified?”

And so, pickpocketing remains the travel industry’s dirty little secret. Unreported incidents = low statistics. And pickpocketing retains the ridiculous label: “petty theft.

Sigh.