A few years ago in Caracas I had the escalator trick tried on me. On a crowded escalator out of the metro/subway, one guy gets in front of the mark and one right behind. As the escalator reaches the top, the front guy pretends to drop something and bends over, causing everybody behind to crunch up. The guy behind the mark then dips into the mark's pants pocket for whatever is there.

When I saw the guy in front of me on the escalator take a pair of glasses out of his shirt pocket and almost purposely dangle them and drop them, I knew what was coming. I had seen this done in Paris many times. He ended up with a badly bruised hand and some broken glasses. The guy behind me got a bit frustrated as he could feel something like a wallet in my pocket, but couldn't get to it. I have these trousers from TravelSmith with the zipped compartment that I regularly wear. With his hand in my pocket, I slammed my hip into the side of the escalator -- and he did howl.

One tip to avoid this is to wait for the escalator to clear and if somebody gets right in front of you, make every attempt to move somehow. One friend who lives in Paris says that when he gets into those situations, he makes a point of taking out a ballpoint pen, gripping it in his hand, and then turning around and looking hard at the fellow behind him. Dunno if it works, but he says it's never been tried on him, and he looks like the obvious American, even though he's worked there for almost 1o years.