Well, I thought my dear husband was a pickpocket magnet but we've been in Madrid, Athens, Prague and London with no incidents. We have, however, been in Barcelona and Rome and he's been pickpocketed there, along with St. Petersburg, Russia. Now when he gets money out of the ATM, he hands it over to me! I keep it in a pouch around my neck under my clothes. My grungy cloth tote bag contains only water, food, guidebooks, etc.

In Barcelona, they grabbed a money clip from out of my husband's pocket. It held US $50. (No, I don't know why my husband, whose common sense I value on most occasions, was walking around with $50 in his pocket in Spain.) When the people who were pushing and crowding him left the subway train, the money clip was on the floor of the train. He explained later (based on years of living in NYC) that they ditch the purse/wallet/money clip immediately- too easy to pin the crime on the perp if they have whatever held the money. In the case mentioned, maybe the "good Samaritan" handing over the empty wallet was distracting the poster from his buddies who left the train with the wallet's contents.