To Catch A Thief
Business Life, March 1997
There have always been professionals out there waiting to lighten our wallets, but these days thieves don’t take any chances. They go to school. Robert Liebman explains.
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Its classrooms are hidden in the back streets of Latin America; its playgrounds are anywhere in the world. The School of Ten Bells doesn’t have traditional blackboards and text books, but graduates must attain a certain level of literacy. Not in reading, writing and arithmetic, but the finer points of pickpocketing.
Take one ordinary suit jacket. Put a wallet in the inner lapel pocket. Line the route to the wallet with bells, so that every time a trainee pickpocket’s hand brushes against it, the bell rings. For an even more effective educational motivator, replace the bells with razor blades: sliced fingers work wonders. Quick learners go on to Advanced Pickpocketing, and the cream of this crop go onto major cities the world over, picking privileged pockets. They learn to work in teams, and their methods are devastating.
“Normally they use two blockers who use some kind of ruse, such as asking for information as they block the entrance to a train”, explains Detective Inspector Robert Dobbie of the British Transport Police.
‘Their victim, anxiously trying to squeeze past them to get onto the train, is then robbed from behind by a third person who passes the spoils to a ‘banker’ who might in turn pass it on to yet another team member.” A team might contain as many as ten people, says Dobbie, who also notes that on the rare occasions when they are arrested, “the Chilean pickpockets’ hands sometimes are full of scars”.
Travel specialists
Some pickpockets work only in airports and trains. Hotels attract different specialists who work the lobbies and check-in queues. If an individual on a long queue picks up his briefcase and casually saunters off, hardly anyone notices. It happens all the time. However, the briefcase being picked up might actually belong to the person in front. The thief may even leave his own briefcase behind (this tactic allays suspicion, and provides the
excuse of an innocent mistake if he — or she — is caught).
These thieves are well dressed, well behaved, courteous - every inch the international business traveller. They blend in.
Special skills
Gerry Croser, a Metropolitan Police Crime Prevention Adviser at London’s Heathrow Airport, admires their skill: “These pickpockets can lift a wallet using only two fingers. It’s hard enough using the whole hand”.
Against this proficiency, though, there’s some good news. Not only can we thwart such villains; we can do it fairly easily and simply. “Keeping your wallet in your jacket or hip pocket is playing into their hands,” says Croser, who notes that thieves shun travellers who are obviously alert and well-defended. Admitting that many crooks are prospering, he also emphasises that the vast majority of travellers experience nothing untoward at all, and should not be unduly worried.
Thieves aim at targets. Remove yourself as a bull’s-eye, and the thief has nothing to aim at. Various ways of achieving this invisibility become evident after we scrutinise their tactics -and our own foibles, which contribute to their success.
I’m a Notebook Computer, I’m Valuable, and I’m Vulnerable
In fact, your notebook computer is where it’s supposed to be, in it purpose-designed carrying case. It’s a natural target.
Ten years ago, cash and credit cards and travellers cheques were the focus of illicit attention. Today, these valuables vie with mobile telephones, electronic organisers, and other pricey modern gadgetry.
Some forms of theft can’t be guarded against; even the most wary traveller will succumb to extraordinary circumstances.
The Just-for-a-Second Scenario
You turn away for the merest moment and, whoosh, your briefcase or handbag is gone. Bad luck? Coincidence that a thief happened by at that moment? Opportunist thief?
More likely, the thief has been eyeing you, waiting for the almost inevitable moment when, making a phone call or buying a newspaper, you drop your guard. And a seasoned pro needs only a fraction of a split second. Thieves also create distractions by such stratagems as requesting change for the telephone or alerting you to a stain on your coat (a stain applied by an accomplice).
Guaranteed Gift to the Distraction Thief
At the bureau de change counter, many people stand with their baggage trolley behind them. Modem highwaymen patrol the money-exchanges seeking such handouts. Similarly, many travellers resolve the big-trolley/small- shop dilemma by leaving their baggage trolley totally unattended. If the attended trolley is vulnerable, an unattended one is akin to giving your possessions away. Ask a reliable person to watch your trolley. Otherwise, consider forgoing that chocolate bar or newspaper.
False Sense of Security
We tend to relax in exclusive department stores, opera houses, glitzy restaurants and, here it is again, hotel lobbies. Why not? These places do their best to protect us, But knowing that we relax in such venues, crooks frequent them and not even the most alert security man can always spot them from the genuine business traveller. Never drop your guard. Never assume that omnipresent invisible security staff are watching you or your possessions. Never succumb to that lulled feeling.
The Doing-What-Comes-Naturally Fallacy
You enter a long-distance train and place your jacket and briefcase on the overhead rack. Another traveller enters and does the same, except that he's not really a traveller, and before the train departs, he leaves, reaching up for his jacket and briefcase except that he's taken yours.
Careful executives place their briefcases on the floor so that it touches their leg; still others press the briefcase between both legs. The Mets Croser tells of a businessman who, as he checked into a hotel, jammed his briefcase against the counter with his foot. Eventually he relaxed, and it was a goner.
Cautious travellers maintain a dualistic, even fatalistic attitude: take measures to not be robbed, minimize loss and inconvenience if it occurs. If your briefcase is stolen, your mobile telephone or notebook computer might go with it, but your passport and credit cards should not be among them, because they should be on your person—hidden in one of various security wallets currently available.
Most executives carry several credit cards. Consider carrying at least one piece of plastic separately: if you wallets is stolen you are still financially functional. Of course, valuables in two pockets instead of one increases your exposure, and it could be just bad luck that a thief will pick the pocket in which you normally keep nothing of value. However, the balance of risks and benefits may commend it.
Croser of the Met confirms that departures and arrivals are the riskiest times. If your passport or airline ticket is stolen en route to the airport, you may not depart at all (and the airport-bound underground lines and traveller-packed stations lure thieves).
Never put handbags (strapless or with straps) on the floor (even in cinemas) or the backs of chairs (especially in restaurants); never carry wallets in rear trouser pockets; use security wallets; be alert (and look it); keep valuables on your person, preferably well hidden; be suspicious in crowds. Much of this familiar advice should ring bells. Why should trainee pickpockets have all the fun?
We know what we should do. When we actually do it, the thieves won't be the only sharp operators around.
Backup files
A good lesson from the world of computing, where winners always have backups, and losers haven't gotten around to it yet. Travellers should back up details of passports, credit cards, and insurance and other emergency numbers. You may want to leave copies of the information with someone back home, but make sure they will be accessible should you need them.
Remember: a disproportionate number of thefts occur just prior to your scheduled departure. This is when you will most appreciate having vital information to hand.
To report or not to report?
This should really not be the question, because the benefits of immediately reporting theft and loss are many and important.
• Loss of your good name. Even if you don't lose money from a lost or stolen credit card, the thief may assume your identity. You may then get blamed for crimes you haven't committed, and the hassle isn't worth it even if you easily explain matters--to the police and then to the prosecutor, and then…you get the picture.
• Insurance claims progress more agreeably if supported by a police report.
• In many places, retrieved property (even valuables) is turned in.
Thank heaven I took my own advice department
A last-minute change on a sweltering crazy-rushed day in Spain found me transferring my valuables from one wallet to another prior to bolting to the bus station. Foolishly, I put my security wallet into my suitcase (the one that went into the hold of the bus) and, due to the rush, the wallet was at the very top, most exposed location. Sure enough, on arrival, it was gone.
Fortunately, just before placing the wallet into the suitcase, I had transferred my valuables (except for a tiny amount of mad-money cash) into my other security wallet (I travel with at least two of them), the one I was wearing under my shirt. For his pains, the thief made off with barely enough money for a pack of cigarettes.
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