Amid the holidays, pickpockets ply ancient trade
Associated Press
CHICAGO
It’s a dying art on America’s city streets, a bit of sleight-of-hand straight out of Charles Dickens’ London.
And yet on the final shopping and travel days before Christmas, Chicago police are stepping up their watch for aging criminals plying an ancient trade in bustling shopping districts and on crowded train platforms, pilfering wallets here and there in little productions as choreographed as any performance of “A Christmas Carol” or “Oliver.”
They’re what’s left of the pickpocket.
Their numbers have dwindled as fewer carry cash, surveillance cameras proliferate and younger would-be crooks lack the patience to learn the trade. But police say the holidays’ glittering lights, bell ringers and window displays create a perfect environment of distractions for a “crew” to fool someone out of their valuables with a bump and an apology as they vanish into the crowd.
Undercover officers, some carrying city maps to make them appear lost, wander around, hoping pickpockets will take the bait and strike. Chicago police also scour surveillance cameras to spot the more than 120 known pickpockets they believe are working the city’s streets.
“They’re shopping around for victims,” said Chicago Police Sgt. Sean Rice, who hunts for the thieves as part of his job with the department’s public transportation unit.
Undoubtedly, there are not nearly as many pickpockets as there once were. In Chicago there were just over 1,800 pickpocket incidents last year — or about a tenth of the number of vehicle thefts. New York police say the number of pickpockets has so dwindled that the department no longer records the crime as its own statistic.
Yet police here and elsewhere still consider it a threat. They say the target now is more likely a victim’s credit cards or identity, rather than cash, and they believe the numbers of victims are higher than the statistics suggest.
“If you have a really good pickpocket, [incidents] are reported as lost property or not reported at all,” said Chicago Police Commander Christopher Kennedy, whose downtown district includes a piece of swanky Michigan Avenue. “I see the reports and you see [victims] don’t know it happened, that it didn’t come into their consciousness until later that, ‘Hey, a guy bumped into me.”’
In Detroit, state police in 2009 arrested a group of Chicago pickpockets who stole credit cards and then quickly manufactured fake drivers’ licenses that included victims’ names and their own photographs.
Police say pickpocket crews travel to the Super Bowl, Kentucky Derby and other major events to take advantage of fans more interested in cheering — and drinking — than keeping track of their belongings. But like everyone else, they’d rather stay home for the holidays. And with busy stores and packed trains providing the perfect environment, there’s no reason to leave.
“It was the best time,” said Sherman Powell, a 64-year-old New Yorker who says he “retired” about a decade ago.
Powell said it’s not surprising that police say most of the pickpockets are older. Gone, he said, are the honest-to-goodness pickpocket schools, like the one he paid some vagabonds $500 to attend in 1969. He does not know anywhere where pickpockets learn their craft as he did, by lifting purses and wallets from mannequins adorned with bells that would ring if disturbed in the slightest way.