Professor of Pickpocketry

FREQUENT FLIER
Filming the Hand That's Stealing His Wallet
With FRANCINE PARNES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/09/bu...9flier.html?th
Published: March 9, 2004

f you want my title, it's professor of pickpocketry. My wife, Bambi
Vincent, and I spend seven months each year traveling the world to film
pickpockets and other street thieves who prey on unsuspecting tourists. As
a security consultant to business travelers, law enforcement and
corporations, I live to expose the latest tricks of scoundrels.

After we observe a thief in action, we usually try to lure him into
conversation and pick his brain the way he picks the pockets of his
victims. Most thieves love to brag, though on other occasions we've had
rocks thrown at us and knives pulled on us, and we've been hit and spat
upon.

I keep my money tucked inside my trousers, in a thin leather pouch that
hangs from my belt. I also have a wallet stuffed only with newspaper, which
I use as bait. It has been stolen from my hip pocket more than 100 times.
Sometimes I confront the thieves and it magically appears on the ground.
But other times I steal it back; that's the quickest way to establish
rapport with pickpockets. When I invite them for coffee, I think they are
in awe, and that is why they reveal their secrets and give me their
cellphone numbers. Granted, the phones are usually stolen.

Our cameras are no bigger than a dime, hidden inside items like buttons on
shirt collars. In London, I was tracking some pickpockets for a news
program and had to go to the men's room. The camera was in my eyeglasses,
and when I stood at the urinal, I forgot to turn my head. The editors had
to do some cutting.

I probably have more insight into the subculture of global pickpocketing
than any other person in the world, on either side of the law. But that
doesn't mean that pickpockets can't outsmart me. Last summer in Rome, my
wife and I were packed like sardines in a metro at rush hour near the
crowded Spanish Steps. There were 20 people near the door, and 14 were
probably pickpockets. A woman was working my hip pocket, gently moving out
my wallet. I had a small wireless video camera hidden in a cellphone in my
right hand, high up filming the action. Bambi was to my left, with two guys
trying for her handbag, which she was keeping an eye on. Another team of
three guys was trying to go for a tall American man standing close beside
me. I pretended not to notice anything.

Unbeknownst to me, they succeeded in removing a small video recorder from a
bag I was holding at knee level while I was watching everyone's faces.
Embarrassing, yes, but I have to acknowledge the finesse of high-end
pickpockets because of the perfection in their combination of stealth and
precise choreography.

I have seen a person steal from someone in a wheelchair. I have seen women
bare their breasts and drop their pants to shock and distract their victims
if they are accused. Nothing has come close what I documented in Calcutta
more than 40 years. Pickpockets with leprosy approached British expatriates
coming out of church and reached out to them with ravaged hands missing
fingers. The victim's reaction of shock and revulsion provided the
distraction needed for the pickpocket's partner to extract his wallet. It
was the most eye-opening incident in pickpocketing I have ever witnessed.

As told to Francine Parnes.
--
Nobody but a fool goes into a federal counterrorism operation without duct tape - Richard Preston, THE COBRA EVENT.

In article ,
wrote:
FREQUENT FLIER
Filming the Hand That's Stealing His Wallet
With FRANCINE PARNES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/09/bu...9flier.html?th
Published: March 9, 2004

you're selling his book, I take it.

--- edt

In article ,
wrote:
FREQUENT FLIER
Filming the Hand That's Stealing His Wallet
With FRANCINE PARNES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/09/bu...9flier.html?th
Published: March 9, 2004


On Tue, 09 Mar 2004 19:21:23 GMT, (Eric
Taylor) wrote:
you're selling his book, I take it.

Nope. Used to go to MIA on idle days and watch the student pickpockets take
their final exams.

Amis often just ain't aware of how the rest of the world works, and I
thought it harmless to call attention to all the freelance socialists out
there.
--
Nobody but a fool goes into a federal counterrorism operation without duct tape - Richard Preston, THE COBRA EVENT.

I keep my money tucked inside my trousers...

There have been many "moneybelt" controversies over in rec.travel.europe,
but I always wear one in Italy, Spain, parts of France, Amsterdam, and
anytime I'm feeling jet-lagged or out-of-it in Europe.

My stepfather is German, and I pushed him hard to wear a moneybelt in
Seville--and he put his credit cards in it, but still lost close to 200 Euro
from a wallet he kept in his pocket. My god-daughter was in Seville on a
college year abroad, and most of her fellow students got purloined. One
had a "baby" tossed to him (a doll), and lost his wallet when he caught it.
The thieves threw his wallet in the air to one another in a crowd as if it
were a rugby game. She herself lost her wallet twice, and cellphone and
keys once.

More recently my stepfather, who lives in Hamburg, got his pocket picked at
the Hamburg fischmarkt. This was traumatic for to him--but then he forgot
about some money he had in his pocket that a friend had repaid him a couple
weeks later, and all THAT 300 Euro was easily pilfered from him at the
fischmarket as well.

If you are hypervigilant, quick, big, young, and muscular, it might not be
as important to wear a moneybelt, though there are places in Europe where
people simply aren't jailed for petty theft that does not involve personal
injury.

I could tell plenty more stories. I think a book about the subculture of
theft (which, I have heard, has great skill and pride attached to it) would
be fun to read, but I probably won't, because sleight of hand (and wallet),
and mis-direction of attention, is pretty well-hashed-over stuff in
stage-magic circles!