NYPD Picking up on pickers of pockets

Many of the scams are well choreographed.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
NEW YORK -- A skillful cat-and-mouse game is playing out on the bustling streets of Manhattan, as plainclothes cops hunt professional pickpockets who prey on millions of unsuspecting holiday shoppers and tourists.
It's never worse than at Christmastime, when clever crooks wander into bustling stores and stalk packed sidewalks, watching and waiting to swipe a wad of cash, a wallet or bag packed with valuables.
But deep in the crowds, undercover cops also are watching and busting the scheming pickpockets.
"It's like fishing. You just got to have a lot of patience," Sgt. Ciro Otero of the Manhattan South Grand Larceny Task Force told the Daily News. "They're very swift, very careful, very quick."
Tourists are prime targets, especially in Rockefeller Center, Herald Square and Times Square, where they can easily become distracted.
While crime across the city continues to fall, the number of grand larcenies this year, including thefts by pickpockets, has increased 2.2 percent compared with the same period last year. And the holiday season -- from Black Friday after Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve -- is the most lucrative time of the year for the stealthy crooks, police officials said.
Just a moment is all an expert pickpocket needs to strike.
"[These officers] are our secret Santas at this time of year, making sure the wallets stay in the right pockets," New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
Tried-and-true scams
The bold bandits, who work hard to perfect their illegal craft, use several practiced scams.
The most skillful pickpockets, dubbed cannons, target only men and their cash, while novices steal women's bags or prey on drunks late at night.
Some savvy "dips" swipe wallets, remove a single credit card and return the wallet before the victim notices it's ever missing. Other thieves work in loosely affiliated crews.
Specific tasks
Each dip in a pickpocket team has a specific role, from blocking the path of a target to shielding the views of potential witnesses to stealing valuables.
"People really need to be aware in the crowd of what's going on around them," said the squad's Lt. Dan Hollywood. "It can happen to anybody.
"It's like a ballet," said Hollywood, a 24-year veteran. "Everything is very well-choreographed."
Pickpockets bounce from neighborhood to neighborhood. As a result, cops carry around a book of roughly 1,000 photos of the most notorious dips -- including men and women as old as 75.
Otero and his fellow cops know some of the veteran thieves by name, having followed them across the five boroughs, waiting for them to make their move.
With enough training, cops have become as smooth as the crooks, able to read the body language of suspected bandits and quickly identify common tactics.
"This is a way of life for them," Hollywood said. "It's their job. It's not a hobby."