Pickpockets: Artists or Crooks?

just shows? Okay, maybe bad starts. Yeah, shows, we're coming up on it. You gotta be close to four fifty, right, No, coming up on four? I think I thought we were over that. No, not yet. No, we would mention our four hundred show. My goal is for us to make it the five hundred and then after that all bets are off the out. It's exactly right, right, So, uh, what's your I think I might know what your intro is, but that would be a wild stab in the dark.

I'd like to hear it because I don't have an intro. Oh really, yeah, what's my intro? Well? I got one then, Okay, the origin of the word sidekick? Have you ever heard this. What does that have to do with pickpockets. I'll tell you my friend back in the old days in London, which is uh, you know obviously Oliver Twist made pickpocketing very famous in London. Well, yeah, his character, Uh, they

had different their own language. It was will find out his pickpockets have their own language period, all sorts of lingo, like multiple names for everything. Uh. And back in the day, they each pocket had its own name. The jerve j E r V or the hair Vey was the vest pocket and the kick I'm sorry, the pratt was a

back pocket and the kick was a side pocket. And the kick was the most cult spot to to pickpocket because it was on the leg and it was always moving, and so people soon realized that that was the safest place to put their stuff was in the sidekick. And so the sidekick years later becomes a term for, you know, someone helpful and maybe protective, Tonto like Tonto. So that's sidekick. Huh, that's that's your first interest. I believe it is. I

would have picked a better one. It's no, that's fantastic. That one's gonna go down and stuff. You should know lore as the sidekick, and that was my first, but I don't know barely appropriate. Do you remember when we used to argue about that about whether you were or not? What do we settle on that you're not? Okay? But I know where to originates from Oliver Twist from the Sidekick. Well, what's funny is there's a lot of stuff that has to do with pickpocketing, Chuck, that did originate for from

Oliver Twist. Oh really Yeah, Like you were talking about, like pickpocketing has it's only and go you said, um, And it's kind of storied and almost legendary, and if you dial the clock back a few decades, like it was, UM kind of looked upon the way that maybe today people look upon um pirates, you know what I'm saying, Like they're criminals, but there there's so much art to what they're doing. Maybe like somebody who could steal a painting from a museum that you have to at least

grudgingly respect them. Well, and we'll talk to uh, we'll not talk to we'll talk about some people to study this. Yeah, I wish someone is here. Is that what this guy is doing exactly? He's lifting your wallet? Um. In this article you found from Slate that there were some experts on you know, pickpocketing, and they they definitely think of

it as an art lost art. Specifically, I want to mention the guy's named Bob Arnold, whose job it is to travel the world and pose as a mark as a tourist and then catch people and figure out what they're doing interesting to keep abbreast of it. Yeah, so, um, chuck, let's talk a little bit about the basics of pick pocketing, right, which I think kind of give us a better view of why people think that it's an art form. Um. There's you've got a few different kinds of people involved.

Like there's uh, the low level pickpockets, who are really just basically somebody who has uh a moral compass that's off and um, an open bag next to him. Yeah, the opportunist, Like, Hey, there's a co ed studying econ one O one on the lawn and she's got her iPad sticking out of her open backpack right next to her, right which she has her headphones jacked into it turned up all the way and is not paying attention because she's been drinking. Well, if the headphones are on her

attached to the iPad, then the person is grabbing the iPad. Well, sure, oh, I thought you meant like there was a person next to her that was open and the iPads in there. She's not studying with the iPad are only for Netflix, and that's what I thought she was deserving. She's studying. Right, Maybe we're talking about a different person, which one I think we've just compled to the easiest mark there there is, right,

which is the unassuming college students. Right. Or you're at like a coffee place or something like that, and there's somebody next to you, and it's the kind of place where you would expect somebody's going to be next to you, and you're not really paying attention. You're involved in your computer and their hands in your bag grabbing your wallet or whatever. Or your sleep on the beach very common one. Yeah, that one stinks because you want to be able to

sleep on the beach. You have your bag open next to you, in your wallet sitting in it at a coffee house and you're not paying attention to it. You got what you deserved. If somebody steals, I mean it stinks that there are people out there stealing in general, and that you can't just go through life like that, but we all know full well that you can't go through life like that, and if you do, then you have no right to complain. You can't even cancel all

of your credit cards. You have to leave one of your credit cards open because punishment, Yes, that's punishment to yourself. Uh well, we also we actually skipped to why people pickpocket to begin with. It's mainly because it's pretty non confrontational crime and you're never known or confronted, and you're you're not like holding a gun, so there's no although we did find out it's a felony a lot of states, even just non weapon involved pickpocketing. Yeah, but it wasn't.

That's pretty new, is it. Yeah, for a very long time, it was like if you picked somebody's pocket, you got very It was a small sentence. You had to return the money and apologize pretty much. Yeah, the cop brought you over by your ear exactly. But um, for the most part, like you said, it's not confrontational, So the person who loses his or her wallet to a pickpocket will probably have no idea who took it, won't know for a long time. Um, And it's fairly safe if

you're good at it. It's safe crime. Yeah. Plus there's no weapons involved, which is why the sentences were traditionally not very big. It's almost victimless except for the victim you know, Well it depends. I mean, if you're touring Europe and you have everything including your passport and your wallet in your back pocket and all of it's taken, that is, there's a victim in that one. I knew a victim in all of them. I knew a girl who had her sunglasses ripped off her face and roam Italy. Okay,

that's not artful. Snatch guys, that's not artful, just a jerk. Um. There was at the Starbucks by my old place, there was a rash of kids just running in and stealing um, people's iPhones right off the table and running out or out of their hand, or stealing the computer that they were working on the laptop and running out the door. And there's a guy who has a coffee place in um Grant Park that his there was just a robbery and everybody was robbed um in that manner like people

just ran in and stole and ran out. Um. So the guy's getting locks for the table so you can slide your laptop in and lock it in place. Yeah, that's sad that you have to do that, all right, So where are we crowded subway? Yes, this is the slightly higher in the hierarchy of pickpockets. Make it sound

effect here, Well, how about this, chuck. One of the things I think that Um kind of gets to the point across when you're describing pickpocketing, sure is saying when you're talking about a scam, saying the old first, right, and having maybe like old timey ragtime saloon music playing in the background while you're describing it. So go ahead with that. Jerry's like on the fly, um, crowded subway car, which is called the old sandwich or sandwich for those

of you who are a little more proper. And that's a lot of times these pickpockets working teams because you're counting on the benefit of distraction. Yes, so tell him how the old sandwich works. Well, the sandwich is a you got a person in front who's called the stall, and the stall suddenly maybe stopped short, um, and and

the person the target bumps into him, the mark. Yeah, and then the hook or the pick or the wire Okay, Um bumps into him it's expected that somebody behind you would bump into you because it's the jerk's fault in front of you. So you're paying attention to the jerk in front of you while the guy behind you you turn around and apologized to and after you know by

that time, the guy's already stolen your wall. So the person in front of you ends up stalling it of you is the stallk who you're like, why did you stop? And while you're stopped, the guy who bumped in behind you the hook was stolen you, Walt, I thought why they turned around and said, boy, I'm sorry for this jouk in front of me. They might have been stealing it. I guarantee you. That's a variation on it that's called the sandwich wrap, the low car wrap, Chuck. There's also

um so the people who who do the sandwich working teams. Um. The team is actually called a cannon. Yeah. So that's a group of organized pickpockets. Twist and his buddies exactly, lead appropriately enough then by a Fagan, which is an old hook, an old pick, an old master pickpocket who um is named after, Um the crime boss in Oliver Twist, Right, Yeah, Um and the fagon teaches younger pickpockets the ropes and absorbs them into the cannon over time. What was that

movie that they mentioned, Oliver Twist. Well, now there was another Harry in your Pocket. I think, yeah, that's what it's called. I haven't seen it, but it's a James Coburn movie from seventy three. Got believe that I will be seeing you. Got no h no complaints there. So a cannon is probably going to be the people who are really good at what they're doing, because there's an old, venerable guy leading the whole thing. Then you go down

like a couple of notches. You've got um bag workers who like go for purses, right, yeah, mole buzzers are I guess that's probably the English version. Well there, that takes some skill because you're getting close to somebody, right,

um lush workers not that that hard. On the subway, A lush worker would just target somebody who was coming home drunk on the subway and they just, I guess, open up their vests and take their wallet out and close their vests, smack the guy in the face with the wallet and then wait for the subway to arrive at it stopped not very hard, so they were viewed um kind of lower level E. But did you read

about the fob workers. Yeah, that was and it's hard to say respect again because these are criminals, but the fob worker really puts in his or her time, right, So like this person just uses nothing but his index finger and his middle finger boom yeah um, and just walks through a subway on a on a ride and just grabs like a couple of quarters, a dollar or whatever's easy to grab. And apparently this one guy estimated, um I think it was an old subway dick um.

He estimated that fob workers could get like four hundred bucks out of a single subway ride. That's crazy. Well that's probably from like Wall Street to Coney Island. But this is like the eighties, nineteen eighties exactly, you know, not even eighteen eighties. Uh. Well, I saw where one guy actually went to class in the nineteen sixties. I don't know if it was in this article or another one, but paid a fagan to teach him the art of pickpocketing.

That was probably in that popular science article from the sixties, this late article reference, Oh, I know what it was. It was from the New York Times, but it was an archived edition. Nice, So what do you learn how to pickpocket? Right? Did he write about it or did he say, like you can tell you, I'd have to kill you. Well, the article was just on the lingo, really, and then it's sourced the source of where the guy got the lingo from, and it was this dude that

said he went to school. Yeah, uh, what else do we have? Child? Children? Sadly, and a lot of countries will pick Remember the human trafficking episode, we talked about children being forced to beg guarantee that there are some out there that are forced to pickpocket. Well, distracting once again, the working in pairs, look at my shiny toy, or while they're begging you, the other kid will come up and you know, reach a little tiny hand in the pocket,

the old tiny hand, the old tiny hand. Trick um. This one was my favorite chuck up. Apparently it's fairly common to throw bird droppings on somebody so viciously then offered to help clean it off. That is, I've read this because I didn't believe that, and I saw people on trip Advisor who it's not bird droppings, it's like fake bird droppings and they'll sling it on people and then they come up and go, oh god, I can't believe that happened. Are you okay? Like, here's the towel.

You know, it's crazy. It just dawned on me. Um, you mean and I were in New York once. I think it was when we were on the Whatever show. Um, when you and I were on the Whatever Show, and um, we were standing in line at the shake shack. Is at the name of the place it's in, Um, one of the parks. What is it? Oh? Sure by park? I can't remember. Yeah, I think that's what it is. Okay, So, um, I think it is a shake scheck. Anyway, Um, we're

standing in line and this guy got bird droppings. It fell right around him in a circle, didn't hit him, And it made no sense physically how that happened. And now I wonder if somebody was trying to pick his pocket and failed, or else if they did and just

distracted him and didn't offer to help clean it off. Well, the other trick I saw similar to this could have happened there too, because apparently catchup and mustard, they'll squirt that on you in a food line and then say, oh, you know, I gott catch up on you here, let me wipe that off, and while I do, let me take your wallet. Let's help you old mustard trick. They'll stage a fight. Maybe yeah, a couple of different guys will stage a fight, and while you're distracted, the third

guy will come around and pick everybody's pockets. Basically, if something suddenly happens out of the ordinary in um public, you want to cover up your valuables. But you want to be smart when you do that, because sometimes that is a ploy in and of itself. You think you're one step ahead of the pig pocket as well. Sometimes you'll be on that crowded subway and someone will say, hey, somebody just took my wallet. So of course the instinct for everyone around that person is to pat their pocket

where their money or while it is. And of course the other pickpocket on the train is going okay, left front pocket sidekick, uh vra chevra jevra, what is it? Hairy? Whoever has the best pocket, which would be in Brooklyn? I guess little hipsters with best and uh boom done. You just told him where your money was, and um, I think in an even funnier way is when somebody warns you to look out for pickpockets as a way

to get you to like pat where your wallet it is? Yeah, which is like just pickpocket telling you look out for pickpockets so you'll show them where your wall it is. It's beautiful, Josh, you said anything unusual happening to you. For instance, the very attractive woman came up to me hitting on me, that would be very unusual. I would probably know to feel around for my wallet because men can be dummies when it comes to the charms of an attractive woman. Yeah, you know the way to uh,

the way to get around that one. How's that morals have more? Yeah, what do you mean? Just be like, madam, I'm afraid I'm taking. Oh, well, if you're taken, but if you're not, you're like, hey, you know what I'm saying. I wasn't saying me obviously years ago. Oh got you single check? Uh on the beach or compassion. If they're on the beach, you might have someone pretend they're drowning, like everyone rushes out there, and then all of a sudden you have blankets full of purses and beach bags.

Or you might drop some change on the floor and be like, oh, I'm so dumb, or your shopping bag. Somebody might drop their shopping bag, and as a nice person, you're gonna help him up. So the it's good on one hand to have morals if you're in a committed relationship. It's bad on the other hand to have morals if you help people pick their bags up. This strange world we live in, chuck it is um. You also probably

can't pick a pickpocket out in a crowd. I'll apparently one of the longstanding traditions is UM to dress very well sure, uh, like a wealthy business person, or at least a business person. Yeah in this economy, right, yeah, exactly, Um and uh yeah, that's a good one. Walk around with a map and a camera around your neck. And they'll also, um frequently have things to hide their hands, whether it's a newspaper, a coat folded over their hands,

or a baby, a live human baby. Uh you mentioned, uh when you would tell them inadvertently where your money was, okay, And sometimes it will just either call it the stroke or the fan, the old stroke, and that's when they will kind of pre pickpocket you and just sort of feel around where your wallet might be bulging from to set you up for assumed to be picked pocket. So how do you how do you get around this? Carry

a gun and shoot people to get too close. Yeah that's one way, um, I think the uh that's the Bernard gets way, Ums Brunson way. Thank you for doing that on behalf of everyone listening to this episode. Thanks Chuck um the The basically, the best way to prevent pickpocketing is to be aware. You know, like I said, if anything unusual happens out in public, just you need to be aware. You should be aware anyway, if you

look like you're confident of where you are. Um, even if you're a tourist, if you look like you are aware of your surroundings, they're probably gonna pass you over. For ned from which top falls? Who has like um uh sunscreen on his nose and like a fisherman's cap. And oh and whether you're trying to prevent pickpocketing or just in general, you should never ever wear socks with sandals. Yeah, this is dead giveaway. You're an instant mark. You got

that looking. We're all sorts of crime, that's right. Uh. If you're traveling in other countries and other countries is where it's likely going to happen. Because we'll discuss here in a minute how it's not as big of a problem here in the US anymore. Canada, that's right, but in uh really all over the world except for North America or at least the United States of Canada, it's still a big problem. So you don't want to carry your wallet in your back pocket like a big dummy

front pocket is safer. Money belt is even safer than that money belt under your clothes. I'm wearing one right now. You really I did when I traveled through Europe, did you really? Yeah? I just can't bring myself too. They're just they're so stupid looking now they are when you go to pay for something and you gotta like reach it down in there, and it's like flesh colored like what they're trying to make it look like your credit

cards just levitating against your stomach. But uh, I did because I was all paranoid about all this stuff when I went to Europe. It's a smart thing to do. And little did I realized that me and my buddy were, you know, fairly tough looking dudes walking around and probably not uh easy marks or at least there were lots more around us that were way easier than us and my my friend Chappy two I remember at the time. So I almost want someone to try and pickpocket me.

He would be like a Hannibal Lecter. Yeah, in Hannibal, he would like chase them down and beat them down into the ground and that would that would be all over for that pickpocket. Hannibal Lector didn't do that, but he did stab at Gypsy to death for pickt Uh Fannie packs don't do it because yeah, those are easily unzipped, especially if they're around turned around to the back um, which you would do to look cool. Oh yeah, on the rear um. I locked my zippers together like in

my backpack with a little uh a little tiny lock. Yeah, but that helps, but it's uh, they can still. I've heard about people like cutting into a backpack even man. Yeah, you gotta have some quick hands to do that and some cajones. Um. They recommend to carry a dummy wallet. I've heard this. I've never heard that does it pull up with like cards that say like, sucker, you didn't get my wallet. If you want to go to that

trouble you could. I think I would if you look around and pay attention to like your junk mail and your normal life, you're going to find things that look like fake credit cards and fake money that you can stuff your dummy wallet with. The thing is, it's like, I mean, that's kind of outweighing these pickpockets, which is

kind of fun in and of itself. Absolutely, at the same time, it seems like it's going to a lot of trouble just to let them steal something like that's still your wallet, even if it's a dummy wallet, like it's an actual wallet. Yeah, that's true, it's just filled with fake stuff. So you're saying, don't let it happen at all, dummy wallet or smart wallet. Yeah, but I

mean dummy wallet's way to go, that's true. Uh, if you're traveling, you want to uh, you know, as always, they will remind you to keep a list of everything you have, including your credit card numbers. Don't put everything in one place. I have a friend at home have access to all your documents so they can send them to you in case it does get nicked. You know that kind of thing. Just I call it common sense traveling.

That's great, great advice. Chuck um, I in my suitcase, Chuck, keep copies photo copies because you can't call them z rocks because that's copyright infringements. Right. Uh, they like my passport, like basically everything I have photo copies of and you keep it like I keep it in the lining the liner of the suitcase. Everyone's gonna know this now when they see you traveling. But it's good. It's a good idea to keep them at the hotel, keeps them at home. Yeah.

Uh so that you can call a trusted friend who's watching your dog or whatever and say, hey, man, not only was my real passport stolen, my photo copies were stolen out of the hotel. Can you give me my passport number? Yeah? And don't carry things like your social Security card and stuff like that. Yeah. I actually used to carry my social Security card back in the day, like a big dummy. Really, and when I was like sixteen, I thought, man, I was important or something. You know,

take this exactly. Do you take social Security cards as credit? Just knock it off my bill? Yeah. Uh So onto the Slate dot com article. I think I think we've arrived there. It's one of my favorite websites. That's a good one it is, so who wrote this? Joe Kio Honey, he's Hawaiian, I'll bet. And when was this? This is this year? Huh February of last year? So this is a current and up to date. Is a dying art and a dying crime in the US? Yeah? And why,

I mean, where's pickpocketing going? Why is it vanishing if if you know you can make some money off of it. Well, a bunch of reasons they list. Um, crime as a whole has fallen since the nineties. Uh, people don't carry as much cash. It's harder to rip people off with credit cards and debit cards because you know, there there's more security involved with those. I would say close circuit

cameras everywhere might dissuade some guys from doing this. What else, Well, you know we talked about the penalties traditionally being fairly small, sure, but in some cases, in some states, Um, they have raised it to where it's the same as armed robbery basically, so it can be a felony. And um, suddenly you're not just looking at you know, three months in the pokey, which anybody can do standing on their head. You're looking

at like five years for pickpocketing. It's gonna make you rethink your your trade, and it has in a lot of ways. Also, apparently Fagan's are dying out and the new generation basically is being blamed for the loss of the art of pickpocketing. Yeah, I thought that was pretty funny. Basically they said, these kids these days just don't have the patience to learn pickpocketing, so it's easier just to

get a gun. Yeah. Well not even just patients, they're less they're not as fearful of confrontation again thanks to the gun. Yeah, kids are all stupid stick up men these days. There's no finesse to it. There's not. Uh. The New York Times in two thousand one, they had a stat um in nineteen there were about twenty three

thousand reported pickpocketing pickpocketing crimes. About five years later that number had fallen by half, and then by the year two thousand there were less than five thousand, and sadly today they do not even track it. No, it's so lostatistically. Yeah, that's good. We should be rejoicing in this. That's Julian's work. Yeah, he helped a lot yea with the cry thing. Yeah, well, Times Square in and of itself changed entirely. Have you ever seen basket Case, uh, where the guy carries his

mutant brother around in the basket and killing rampage. He stays in Times Square And I've never been to Time Square until like way after the crossover, I guess is what you call it to where it's now very family friendly and safe. And I was like, that's what Times Square used to look like. Holy cow, it looks like Detroit. Yeah. I was in New Jersey when it was crossing over.

So when I first started going to New York, it was, um, they were still like Pete shows and other businesses I won't mentioned on the podcast, and it was just starting. Like the first uh family like theme restaurant went in while I was living up there. I wonder how many tax breaks that family theme restaurant got just you know, yeah, I can't remember what it was, but I remember thinking at the time, Uh, Times Square, look at it and they're cleaning it up, sadly, no more brown bagging it.

What does that mean walking around drinking beer out of a brown bag, picking pockets? I thought it meant bringing your lunch from home. Ah yeah, or lunch pailing it. Okay, um, chuck, there is one place where the art of pickpocketing was revived recently, say around two thousand seven, where Europe as a whole still is rampant with pickpocketing, um thanks to the Apparently, according to the Slate article, UM the entrance of Romania and Bulgaria, two places with legendary pickpockets into

the EU. So now people from Romania and Bulgaria can travel around Europe much more easily and pickpockets wherever they stop. Interesting. Well, good for them. I don't know about that, but that's pickpocketing. That's how flesh color of money belts work. That's right, I own one. Have you got anything else? Now? Well, if you want to see some um in late nineties staff members of How Stuff Works posing in photos? Is that? Who that was to demonstrate? I was trying to see

one of them? Is that? How to stuffs? Catherine near I think she's the mark in the photos? Interesting? Um, you can write you can type pickpocketing in the search bar how stuff Works dot com. And since I said search bars, time for listener mail. Josh. I picked this one out especially for this one because it involves cleptomania, and I know that's an old show, but this was pretty fascinating, I thought, and this is from anonymous, all right, and it's a girl. Um huh, oh you know who

it is because she's a criminal cancer. I recently listen to your podcast in Cleptomania, and I have to thank you for giving a name to the disorder that has plagued me for of the past four years. She didn't know. She had never heard of it. Um. I first started to steal when I was fifteen. I was at a pizza hut with my family, felt a very troubling, consuming urge to steal the silverware. After secretly putting the knife and fork in my purse, I felt relieved and a

little guilty. Uh. That day was the start of a theft rampage. I've stolen silverware, especially spoons, from every restaurant I've ever been to, and even one that I worked at. Right now, I have a collection of hundreds of sets of silverware. At one time, I even began to label them with the restaurant's name and the date that it was stolen, but that became too much work. That's like the Pickpocket and the Tinton movie. He has like all of the Waltz he's still in like labels with the

date and interesting. Uh So, like you said in your podcast, I keep this hidden and I felt tremendous tension and guilt over the years for it, but never once mentioned it to my therapist. I'm in therapy for depression and depression and anxiety, which I learned is actually co morbid with kleptomania. Yeah, the therapist is gonna be like, why didn't you tell him years ago? Exactly, I could have cured you already. I felt that I must apologize to the businesses. I feel that I must apologize to the

businesses in and around Kalamazoo, Michigan. So if you're business in Kalamazoo, Michigan restaurant and you're missing spoons, it's this lady's fault. Chuck can tell you who it is. However, I'm making a change today. Your podcast and my guilty conscience has inspired me to tell my therapist and hopefully be free of this nasty habit. My emailed I was like, hey, can I read this on the ergement? Sure, that's awesome Calamazoo, Michigan.

Anonymous from Kalamazoo, Yes, very nice, congratulations and turning over a new leaf. Yeah, tell your shrink about it. He'll probably be very fascinated. And if anyone out there has not heard the How Kleptomania Works episode, it's pretty good. I magically transformed Chuck into a tube of lipstick. Yeah, remember that you were great. If you have a revelation about yourself or you're turning over a new leaf, whether it's for the new year or not, it seems appropriate

that you tell us about it. You know where your old pals Josh and Chuck. Um, you can tweet to us, which our Twitter handle is s y s K podcast. You can put it on Facebook. Um, that's Facebook dot com slash that you should know. Those two are much less private than just sending us a regular old fashioned email. To stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it

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