Originally Posted by LessO2
I walked into an organized pick-pocket ring in Rome, and got out with all of my stuff.
It was a woman-woman team (perhaps mother/daughter). Narrow sidewalk, one woman crowded me, complete with a "bundle of joy" (which I saw was a doll in a blanket), and another one on the other side, both wailing in Italian to me.
I never carry my wallet when walking on foreign streets, I only had some Lira (this was before the Euro), a credit card and my hotel key, all in one pocket. I felt both of their hands in my pockets, but I knew which one had the goods.
I squeezed hard the wrist of the one in the pocket with my stuff, pulled her hand out and made sure it was empty. She started yelling "police!," but I just chuckled, made sure again her hand was empty, and walked away.
Guess living in New York does pay off.
Visited Rome last year, had just parked the car and were waiting at a metro platform (me, wife, and 1-yr old in stroller). Probably had 'tourist' written all over us. Just as the train arrived, a group of young (8-10 years old) schoolgirls in uniform crowded around us and started shoving us into the car. The rest of the platform was uncrowded, and therefore my warning bells suddenly went on. I reached for my pockets, my wallet was safe, called out to my wife to watch her purse (slung over her shoulder, with a simple flap cover), just as she reached for it, she felt a hand leaving it, carrying her wallet with it. At that moment, all the girls ran off the train, just as the doors closed.
We turned around at the next station and went back, and checked all the trash cans in the station just in case they had ditched the wallet, but no luck.
Fortunately, all that was in the wallet were drivers license, 2 credit cards, a small amount of cash, and other miscellaneous stuff (AAA card, some gift cards, receipts, etc.). All our passports were with me inside a zippered pocket. Cancelled the cards, filed a report with the Carbinieri, and took taxis the rest of the time in Rome. Replaced the DL and credit cards after coming home a week later.
While we didn't like what happened, at least it was not a potentially disastrous event, like losing all cash/credit cards and/or passports. So in retrospect, it was a 'relatively' inexpensive but very important lesson learned on protecting against pickpockets, and recognizing that pickpockets can be of any age or gender!