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Pickpockets: Artists or Crooks? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. This is Charles W. Chuck
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Speaker 1: Bryant whiting his whistle. Uh and uh, the stuff you
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Speaker 1: should know? This is the podcast. Yeah, it's is off
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Speaker 1: to a terrible start. Good again, that's what consecutive bad starts? Oh,
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Speaker 1: we haven't hit four yet. Yeah, what bad starts are
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Speaker 1: just shows? Okay, maybe bad starts. Yeah, shows, we're coming
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Speaker 1: up on it. You gotta be close to four fifty, right, No,
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Speaker 1: coming up on four? I think I thought we were
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Speaker 1: over that. No, not yet. No, we would mention our
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Speaker 1: four hundred show. My goal is for us to make
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Speaker 1: it the five hundred and then after that all bets
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Speaker 1: are off the out. It's exactly right, right, So, uh,
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Speaker 1: what's your I think I might know what your intro is,
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Speaker 1: but that would be a wild stab in the dark.
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Speaker 1: I'd like to hear it because I don't have an intro.
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Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, what's my intro? Well? I got one then, Okay,
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Speaker 1: the origin of the word sidekick? Have you ever heard this.
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Speaker 1: What does that have to do with pickpockets. I'll tell
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Speaker 1: you my friend back in the old days in London,
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Speaker 1: which is uh, you know obviously Oliver Twist made pickpocketing
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Speaker 1: very famous in London. Well, yeah, his character, Uh, they
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Speaker 1: had different their own language. It was will find out
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Speaker 1: his pickpockets have their own language period, all sorts of lingo,
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Speaker 1: like multiple names for everything. Uh. And back in the day,
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Speaker 1: they each pocket had its own name. The jerve j
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Speaker 1: E r V or the hair Vey was the vest
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Speaker 1: pocket and the kick I'm sorry, the pratt was a
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Speaker 1: back pocket and the kick was a side pocket. And
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Speaker 1: the kick was the most cult spot to to pickpocket
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Speaker 1: because it was on the leg and it was always moving,
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Speaker 1: and so people soon realized that that was the safest
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Speaker 1: place to put their stuff was in the sidekick. And
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Speaker 1: so the sidekick years later becomes a term for, you know,
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Speaker 1: someone helpful and maybe protective, Tonto like Tonto. So that's sidekick. Huh,
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Speaker 1: that's that's your first interest. I believe it is. I
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Speaker 1: would have picked a better one. It's no, that's fantastic.
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Speaker 1: That one's gonna go down and stuff. You should know
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Speaker 1: lore as the sidekick, and that was my first, but
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Speaker 1: I don't know barely appropriate. Do you remember when we
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Speaker 1: used to argue about that about whether you were or not?
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Speaker 1: What do we settle on that you're not? Okay? But
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Speaker 1: I know where to originates from Oliver Twist from the Sidekick. Well,
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Speaker 1: what's funny is there's a lot of stuff that has
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Speaker 1: to do with pickpocketing, Chuck, that did originate for from
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Speaker 1: Oliver Twist. Oh really Yeah, Like you were talking about,
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Speaker 1: like pickpocketing has it's only and go you said, um,
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Speaker 1: And it's kind of storied and almost legendary, and if
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Speaker 1: you dial the clock back a few decades, like it was,
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Speaker 1: UM kind of looked upon the way that maybe today
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Speaker 1: people look upon um pirates, you know what I'm saying,
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Speaker 1: Like they're criminals, but there there's so much art to
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Speaker 1: what they're doing. Maybe like somebody who could steal a
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Speaker 1: painting from a museum that you have to at least
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Speaker 1: grudgingly respect them. Well, and we'll talk to uh, we'll
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Speaker 1: not talk to we'll talk about some people to study this. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I wish someone is here. Is that what this guy
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Speaker 1: is doing exactly? He's lifting your wallet? Um. In this
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Speaker 1: article you found from Slate that there were some experts
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Speaker 1: on you know, pickpocketing, and they they definitely think of
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Speaker 1: it as an art lost art. Specifically, I want to
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Speaker 1: mention the guy's named Bob Arnold, whose job it is
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Speaker 1: to travel the world and pose as a mark as
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Speaker 1: a tourist and then catch people and figure out what
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Speaker 1: they're doing interesting to keep abbreast of it. Yeah, so, um, chuck,
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Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about the basics of pick pocketing, right,
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Speaker 1: which I think kind of give us a better view
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Speaker 1: of why people think that it's an art form. Um.
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Speaker 1: There's you've got a few different kinds of people involved.
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Speaker 1: Like there's uh, the low level pickpockets, who are really
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Speaker 1: just basically somebody who has uh a moral compass that's
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Speaker 1: off and um, an open bag next to him. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: the opportunist, Like, Hey, there's a co ed studying econ
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Speaker 1: one O one on the lawn and she's got her
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Speaker 1: iPad sticking out of her open backpack right next to her,
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Speaker 1: right which she has her headphones jacked into it turned
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Speaker 1: up all the way and is not paying attention because
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Speaker 1: she's been drinking. Well, if the headphones are on her
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Speaker 1: attached to the iPad, then the person is grabbing the iPad. Well, sure, oh,
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Speaker 1: I thought you meant like there was a person next
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Speaker 1: to her that was open and the iPads in there.
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Speaker 1: She's not studying with the iPad are only for Netflix,
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Speaker 1: and that's what I thought she was deserving. She's studying. Right,
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Speaker 1: Maybe we're talking about a different person, which one I
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Speaker 1: think we've just compled to the easiest mark there there is, right,
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Speaker 1: which is the unassuming college students. Right. Or you're at
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Speaker 1: like a coffee place or something like that, and there's
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Speaker 1: somebody next to you, and it's the kind of place
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Speaker 1: where you would expect somebody's going to be next to you,
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Speaker 1: and you're not really paying attention. You're involved in your
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Speaker 1: computer and their hands in your bag grabbing your wallet
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Speaker 1: or whatever. Or your sleep on the beach very common one. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that one stinks because you want to be able to
5:42
Speaker 1: sleep on the beach. You have your bag open next
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Speaker 1: to you, in your wallet sitting in it at a
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Speaker 1: coffee house and you're not paying attention to it. You
5:48
Speaker 1: got what you deserved. If somebody steals, I mean it
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Speaker 1: stinks that there are people out there stealing in general,
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Speaker 1: and that you can't just go through life like that,
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Speaker 1: but we all know full well that you can't go
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Speaker 1: through life like that, and if you do, then you
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Speaker 1: have no right to complain. You can't even cancel all
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Speaker 1: of your credit cards. You have to leave one of
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Speaker 1: your credit cards open because punishment, Yes, that's punishment to yourself.
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Speaker 1: Uh well, we also we actually skipped to why people
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Speaker 1: pickpocket to begin with. It's mainly because it's pretty non
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Speaker 1: confrontational crime and you're never known or confronted, and you're
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Speaker 1: you're not like holding a gun, so there's no although
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Speaker 1: we did find out it's a felony a lot of states,
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Speaker 1: even just non weapon involved pickpocketing. Yeah, but it wasn't.
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Speaker 1: That's pretty new, is it. Yeah, for a very long time,
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Speaker 1: it was like if you picked somebody's pocket, you got
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Speaker 1: very It was a small sentence. You had to return
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Speaker 1: the money and apologize pretty much. Yeah, the cop brought
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Speaker 1: you over by your ear exactly. But um, for the
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Speaker 1: most part, like you said, it's not confrontational, So the
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Speaker 1: person who loses his or her wallet to a pickpocket
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Speaker 1: will probably have no idea who took it, won't know
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Speaker 1: for a long time. Um, And it's fairly safe if
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Speaker 1: you're good at it. It's safe crime. Yeah. Plus there's
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Speaker 1: no weapons involved, which is why the sentences were traditionally
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Speaker 1: not very big. It's almost victimless except for the victim
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Speaker 1: you know, Well it depends. I mean, if you're touring
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Speaker 1: Europe and you have everything including your passport and your
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Speaker 1: wallet in your back pocket and all of it's taken,
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Speaker 1: that is, there's a victim in that one. I knew
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Speaker 1: a victim in all of them. I knew a girl
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Speaker 1: who had her sunglasses ripped off her face and roam Italy. Okay,
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Speaker 1: that's not artful. Snatch guys, that's not artful, just a jerk. Um.
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Speaker 1: There was at the Starbucks by my old place, there
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Speaker 1: was a rash of kids just running in and stealing um,
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Speaker 1: people's iPhones right off the table and running out or
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Speaker 1: out of their hand, or stealing the computer that they
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Speaker 1: were working on the laptop and running out the door.
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Speaker 1: And there's a guy who has a coffee place in
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Speaker 1: um Grant Park that his there was just a robbery
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Speaker 1: and everybody was robbed um in that manner like people
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Speaker 1: just ran in and stole and ran out. Um. So
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Speaker 1: the guy's getting locks for the table so you can
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Speaker 1: slide your laptop in and lock it in place. Yeah,
8:21
Speaker 1: that's sad that you have to do that, all right,
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Speaker 1: So where are we crowded subway? Yes, this is the
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Speaker 1: slightly higher in the hierarchy of pickpockets. Make it sound
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Speaker 1: effect here, Well, how about this, chuck. One of the
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Speaker 1: things I think that Um kind of gets to the
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Speaker 1: point across when you're describing pickpocketing, sure is saying when
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Speaker 1: you're talking about a scam, saying the old first, right,
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Speaker 1: and having maybe like old timey ragtime saloon music playing
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Speaker 1: in the background while you're describing it. So go ahead
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Speaker 1: with that. Jerry's like on the fly, um, crowded subway car,
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Speaker 1: which is called the old sandwich or sandwich for those
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Speaker 1: of you who are a little more proper. And that's
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Speaker 1: a lot of times these pickpockets working teams because you're
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Speaker 1: counting on the benefit of distraction. Yes, so tell him
9:15
Speaker 1: how the old sandwich works. Well, the sandwich is a
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Speaker 1: you got a person in front who's called the stall,
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Speaker 1: and the stall suddenly maybe stopped short, um, and and
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Speaker 1: the person the target bumps into him, the mark. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and then the hook or the pick or the wire Okay,
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Speaker 1: Um bumps into him it's expected that somebody behind you
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Speaker 1: would bump into you because it's the jerk's fault in
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Speaker 1: front of you. So you're paying attention to the jerk
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Speaker 1: in front of you while the guy behind you you
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Speaker 1: turn around and apologized to and after you know by
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Speaker 1: that time, the guy's already stolen your wall. So the
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Speaker 1: person in front of you ends up stalling it of
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Speaker 1: you is the stallk who you're like, why did you stop?
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Speaker 1: And while you're stopped, the guy who bumped in behind
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Speaker 1: you the hook was stolen you, Walt, I thought why
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Speaker 1: they turned around and said, boy, I'm sorry for this
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Speaker 1: jouk in front of me. They might have been stealing it.
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Speaker 1: I guarantee you. That's a variation on it that's called
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Speaker 1: the sandwich wrap, the low car wrap, Chuck. There's also
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Speaker 1: um so the people who who do the sandwich working teams. Um.
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Speaker 1: The team is actually called a cannon. Yeah. So that's
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Speaker 1: a group of organized pickpockets. Twist and his buddies exactly,
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Speaker 1: lead appropriately enough then by a Fagan, which is an
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Speaker 1: old hook, an old pick, an old master pickpocket who
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Speaker 1: um is named after, Um the crime boss in Oliver Twist, Right, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: Um and the fagon teaches younger pickpockets the ropes and
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Speaker 1: absorbs them into the cannon over time. What was that
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Speaker 1: movie that they mentioned, Oliver Twist. Well, now there was
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Speaker 1: another Harry in your Pocket. I think, yeah, that's what
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Speaker 1: it's called. I haven't seen it, but it's a James
10:57
Speaker 1: Coburn movie from seventy three. Got believe that I will
11:01
Speaker 1: be seeing you. Got no h no complaints there. So
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Speaker 1: a cannon is probably going to be the people who
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Speaker 1: are really good at what they're doing, because there's an old,
11:10
Speaker 1: venerable guy leading the whole thing. Then you go down
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Speaker 1: like a couple of notches. You've got um bag workers
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Speaker 1: who like go for purses, right, yeah, mole buzzers are
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Speaker 1: I guess that's probably the English version. Well there, that
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Speaker 1: takes some skill because you're getting close to somebody, right,
11:31
Speaker 1: um lush workers not that that hard. On the subway,
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Speaker 1: A lush worker would just target somebody who was coming
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Speaker 1: home drunk on the subway and they just, I guess,
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Speaker 1: open up their vests and take their wallet out and
11:44
Speaker 1: close their vests, smack the guy in the face with
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Speaker 1: the wallet and then wait for the subway to arrive
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Speaker 1: at it stopped not very hard, so they were viewed
11:52
Speaker 1: um kind of lower level E. But did you read
11:56
Speaker 1: about the fob workers. Yeah, that was and it's hard
12:00
Speaker 1: to say respect again because these are criminals, but the
12:02
Speaker 1: fob worker really puts in his or her time, right,
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Speaker 1: So like this person just uses nothing but his index
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Speaker 1: finger and his middle finger boom yeah um, and just
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Speaker 1: walks through a subway on a on a ride and
12:14
Speaker 1: just grabs like a couple of quarters, a dollar or
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Speaker 1: whatever's easy to grab. And apparently this one guy estimated,
12:21
Speaker 1: um I think it was an old subway dick um.
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Speaker 1: He estimated that fob workers could get like four hundred
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Speaker 1: bucks out of a single subway ride. That's crazy. Well
12:32
Speaker 1: that's probably from like Wall Street to Coney Island. But
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Speaker 1: this is like the eighties, nineteen eighties exactly, you know,
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Speaker 1: not even eighteen eighties. Uh. Well, I saw where one
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Speaker 1: guy actually went to class in the nineteen sixties. I
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Speaker 1: don't know if it was in this article or another one,
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Speaker 1: but paid a fagan to teach him the art of pickpocketing.
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Speaker 1: That was probably in that popular science article from the sixties,
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Speaker 1: this late article reference, Oh, I know what it was.
13:01
Speaker 1: It was from the New York Times, but it was
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Speaker 1: an archived edition. Nice, So what do you learn how
13:06
Speaker 1: to pickpocket? Right? Did he write about it or did
13:09
Speaker 1: he say, like you can tell you, I'd have to
13:11
Speaker 1: kill you. Well, the article was just on the lingo, really,
13:14
Speaker 1: and then it's sourced the source of where the guy
13:17
Speaker 1: got the lingo from, and it was this dude that
13:19
Speaker 1: said he went to school. Yeah, uh, what else do
13:22
Speaker 1: we have? Child? Children? Sadly, and a lot of countries
13:26
Speaker 1: will pick Remember the human trafficking episode, we talked about
13:31
Speaker 1: children being forced to beg guarantee that there are some
13:34
Speaker 1: out there that are forced to pickpocket. Well, distracting once again,
13:39
Speaker 1: the working in pairs, look at my shiny toy, or
13:42
Speaker 1: while they're begging you, the other kid will come up
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Speaker 1: and you know, reach a little tiny hand in the pocket,
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Speaker 1: the old tiny hand, the old tiny hand. Trick um.
13:53
Speaker 1: This one was my favorite chuck up. Apparently it's fairly
13:56
Speaker 1: common to throw bird droppings on somebody so viciously then
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Speaker 1: offered to help clean it off. That is, I've read
14:04
Speaker 1: this because I didn't believe that, and I saw people
14:06
Speaker 1: on trip Advisor who it's not bird droppings, it's like
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Speaker 1: fake bird droppings and they'll sling it on people and
14:13
Speaker 1: then they come up and go, oh god, I can't
14:15
Speaker 1: believe that happened. Are you okay? Like, here's the towel.
14:18
Speaker 1: You know, it's crazy. It just dawned on me. Um,
14:22
Speaker 1: you mean and I were in New York once. I
14:23
Speaker 1: think it was when we were on the Whatever show. Um,
14:27
Speaker 1: when you and I were on the Whatever Show, and um,
14:30
Speaker 1: we were standing in line at the shake shack. Is
14:34
Speaker 1: at the name of the place it's in, Um, one
14:37
Speaker 1: of the parks. What is it? Oh? Sure by park?
14:41
Speaker 1: I can't remember. Yeah, I think that's what it is. Okay, So, um,
14:44
Speaker 1: I think it is a shake scheck. Anyway, Um, we're
14:46
Speaker 1: standing in line and this guy got bird droppings. It
14:51
Speaker 1: fell right around him in a circle, didn't hit him,
14:54
Speaker 1: And it made no sense physically how that happened. And
14:58
Speaker 1: now I wonder if somebody was trying to pick his
15:01
Speaker 1: pocket and failed, or else if they did and just
15:02
Speaker 1: distracted him and didn't offer to help clean it off. Well,
15:05
Speaker 1: the other trick I saw similar to this could have
15:07
Speaker 1: happened there too, because apparently catchup and mustard, they'll squirt
15:11
Speaker 1: that on you in a food line and then say, oh,
15:15
Speaker 1: you know, I gott catch up on you here, let
15:17
Speaker 1: me wipe that off, and while I do, let me
15:19
Speaker 1: take your wallet. Let's help you old mustard trick. They'll
15:23
Speaker 1: stage a fight. Maybe yeah, a couple of different guys
15:26
Speaker 1: will stage a fight, and while you're distracted, the third
15:28
Speaker 1: guy will come around and pick everybody's pockets. Basically, if
15:32
Speaker 1: something suddenly happens out of the ordinary in um public,
15:37
Speaker 1: you want to cover up your valuables. But you want
15:41
Speaker 1: to be smart when you do that, because sometimes that
15:44
Speaker 1: is a ploy in and of itself. You think you're
15:46
Speaker 1: one step ahead of the pig pocket as well. Sometimes
15:52
Speaker 1: you'll be on that crowded subway and someone will say, hey,
15:54
Speaker 1: somebody just took my wallet. So of course the instinct
15:57
Speaker 1: for everyone around that person is to pat their pocket
16:00
Speaker 1: where their money or while it is. And of course
16:03
Speaker 1: the other pickpocket on the train is going okay, left
16:06
Speaker 1: front pocket sidekick, uh vra chevra jevra, what is it? Hairy?
16:14
Speaker 1: Whoever has the best pocket, which would be in Brooklyn?
16:16
Speaker 1: I guess little hipsters with best and uh boom done.
16:21
Speaker 1: You just told him where your money was, and um,
16:23
Speaker 1: I think in an even funnier way is when somebody
16:25
Speaker 1: warns you to look out for pickpockets as a way
16:28
Speaker 1: to get you to like pat where your wallet it is? Yeah,
16:32
Speaker 1: which is like just pickpocket telling you look out for
16:35
Speaker 1: pickpockets so you'll show them where your wall it is.
16:37
Speaker 1: It's beautiful, Josh, you said anything unusual happening to you.
16:40
Speaker 1: For instance, the very attractive woman came up to me
16:45
Speaker 1: hitting on me, that would be very unusual. I would
16:47
Speaker 1: probably know to feel around for my wallet because men
16:51
Speaker 1: can be dummies when it comes to the charms of
16:54
Speaker 1: an attractive woman. Yeah, you know the way to uh,
16:56
Speaker 1: the way to get around that one. How's that morals
16:59
Speaker 1: have more? Yeah, what do you mean? Just be like, madam,
17:02
Speaker 1: I'm afraid I'm taking. Oh, well, if you're taken, but
17:05
Speaker 1: if you're not, you're like, hey, you know what I'm saying.
17:09
Speaker 1: I wasn't saying me obviously years ago. Oh got you
17:14
Speaker 1: single check? Uh on the beach or compassion. If they're
17:19
Speaker 1: on the beach, you might have someone pretend they're drowning,
17:22
Speaker 1: like everyone rushes out there, and then all of a
17:24
Speaker 1: sudden you have blankets full of purses and beach bags.
17:28
Speaker 1: Or you might drop some change on the floor and
17:30
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I'm so dumb, or your shopping bag.
17:34
Speaker 1: Somebody might drop their shopping bag, and as a nice person,
17:37
Speaker 1: you're gonna help him up. So the it's good on
17:40
Speaker 1: one hand to have morals if you're in a committed relationship.
17:43
Speaker 1: It's bad on the other hand to have morals if
17:45
Speaker 1: you help people pick their bags up. This strange world
17:51
Speaker 1: we live in, chuck it is um. You also probably
17:55
Speaker 1: can't pick a pickpocket out in a crowd. I'll apparently
18:00
Speaker 1: one of the longstanding traditions is UM to dress very
18:05
Speaker 1: well sure, uh, like a wealthy business person, or at
18:09
Speaker 1: least a business person. Yeah in this economy, right, yeah, exactly,
18:14
Speaker 1: Um and uh yeah, that's a good one. Walk around
18:18
Speaker 1: with a map and a camera around your neck. And
18:20
Speaker 1: they'll also, um frequently have things to hide their hands,
18:24
Speaker 1: whether it's a newspaper, a coat folded over their hands,
18:27
Speaker 1: or a baby, a live human baby. Uh you mentioned,
18:33
Speaker 1: uh when you would tell them inadvertently where your money was, okay,
18:37
Speaker 1: And sometimes it will just either call it the stroke
18:40
Speaker 1: or the fan, the old stroke, and that's when they
18:43
Speaker 1: will kind of pre pickpocket you and just sort of
18:45
Speaker 1: feel around where your wallet might be bulging from to
18:49
Speaker 1: set you up for assumed to be picked pocket. So
18:54
Speaker 1: how do you how do you get around this? Carry
18:56
Speaker 1: a gun and shoot people to get too close. Yeah
19:00
Speaker 1: that's one way, um, I think the uh that's the
19:03
Speaker 1: Bernard gets way, Ums Brunson way. Thank you for doing
19:09
Speaker 1: that on behalf of everyone listening to this episode. Thanks
19:12
Speaker 1: Chuck um the The basically, the best way to prevent
19:19
Speaker 1: pickpocketing is to be aware. You know, like I said,
19:23
Speaker 1: if anything unusual happens out in public, just you need
19:26
Speaker 1: to be aware. You should be aware anyway, if you
19:29
Speaker 1: look like you're confident of where you are. Um, even
19:32
Speaker 1: if you're a tourist, if you look like you are
19:36
Speaker 1: aware of your surroundings, they're probably gonna pass you over.
19:39
Speaker 1: For ned from which top falls? Who has like um
19:44
Speaker 1: uh sunscreen on his nose and like a fisherman's cap.
19:47
Speaker 1: And oh and whether you're trying to prevent pickpocketing or
19:52
Speaker 1: just in general, you should never ever wear socks with sandals. Yeah,
19:57
Speaker 1: this is dead giveaway. You're an instant mark. You got
20:00
Speaker 1: that looking. We're all sorts of crime, that's right. Uh.
20:04
Speaker 1: If you're traveling in other countries and other countries is
20:07
Speaker 1: where it's likely going to happen. Because we'll discuss here
20:10
Speaker 1: in a minute how it's not as big of a
20:11
Speaker 1: problem here in the US anymore. Canada, that's right, but
20:15
Speaker 1: in uh really all over the world except for North
20:19
Speaker 1: America or at least the United States of Canada, it's
20:22
Speaker 1: still a big problem. So you don't want to carry
20:25
Speaker 1: your wallet in your back pocket like a big dummy
20:28
Speaker 1: front pocket is safer. Money belt is even safer than
20:32
Speaker 1: that money belt under your clothes. I'm wearing one right now.
20:35
Speaker 1: You really I did when I traveled through Europe, did
20:38
Speaker 1: you really? Yeah? I just can't bring myself too. They're
20:41
Speaker 1: just they're so stupid looking now they are when you
20:44
Speaker 1: go to pay for something and you gotta like reach
20:46
Speaker 1: it down in there, and it's like flesh colored like
20:48
Speaker 1: what they're trying to make it look like your credit
20:51
Speaker 1: cards just levitating against your stomach. But uh, I did
20:56
Speaker 1: because I was all paranoid about all this stuff when
20:58
Speaker 1: I went to Europe. It's a smart thing to do.
21:00
Speaker 1: And little did I realized that me and my buddy were,
21:03
Speaker 1: you know, fairly tough looking dudes walking around and probably
21:06
Speaker 1: not uh easy marks or at least there were lots
21:10
Speaker 1: more around us that were way easier than us and
21:13
Speaker 1: my my friend Chappy two I remember at the time.
21:15
Speaker 1: So I almost want someone to try and pickpocket me.
21:19
Speaker 1: He would be like a Hannibal Lecter. Yeah, in Hannibal,
21:22
Speaker 1: he would like chase them down and beat them down
21:24
Speaker 1: into the ground and that would that would be all
21:26
Speaker 1: over for that pickpocket. Hannibal Lector didn't do that, but
21:29
Speaker 1: he did stab at Gypsy to death for pickt Uh
21:33
Speaker 1: Fannie packs don't do it because yeah, those are easily unzipped,
21:39
Speaker 1: especially if they're around turned around to the back um,
21:42
Speaker 1: which you would do to look cool. Oh yeah, on
21:45
Speaker 1: the rear um. I locked my zippers together like in
21:51
Speaker 1: my backpack with a little uh a little tiny lock. Yeah,
21:54
Speaker 1: but that helps, but it's uh, they can still. I've
21:57
Speaker 1: heard about people like cutting into a backpack even man. Yeah,
22:00
Speaker 1: you gotta have some quick hands to do that and
22:04
Speaker 1: some cajones. Um. They recommend to carry a dummy wallet.
22:08
Speaker 1: I've heard this. I've never heard that does it pull
22:12
Speaker 1: up with like cards that say like, sucker, you didn't
22:15
Speaker 1: get my wallet. If you want to go to that
22:17
Speaker 1: trouble you could. I think I would if you look
22:19
Speaker 1: around and pay attention to like your junk mail and
22:22
Speaker 1: your normal life, you're going to find things that look
22:25
Speaker 1: like fake credit cards and fake money that you can
22:29
Speaker 1: stuff your dummy wallet with. The thing is, it's like,
22:33
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of outweighing these pickpockets, which is
22:38
Speaker 1: kind of fun in and of itself. Absolutely, at the
22:40
Speaker 1: same time, it seems like it's going to a lot
22:42
Speaker 1: of trouble just to let them steal something like that's
22:47
Speaker 1: still your wallet, even if it's a dummy wallet, like
22:50
Speaker 1: it's an actual wallet. Yeah, that's true, it's just filled
22:53
Speaker 1: with fake stuff. So you're saying, don't let it happen
22:55
Speaker 1: at all, dummy wallet or smart wallet. Yeah, but I
22:58
Speaker 1: mean dummy wallet's way to go, that's true. Uh, if
23:01
Speaker 1: you're traveling, you want to uh, you know, as always,
23:04
Speaker 1: they will remind you to keep a list of everything
23:07
Speaker 1: you have, including your credit card numbers. Don't put everything
23:10
Speaker 1: in one place. I have a friend at home have
23:13
Speaker 1: access to all your documents so they can send them
23:17
Speaker 1: to you in case it does get nicked. You know
23:19
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Just I call it common sense traveling.
23:22
Speaker 1: That's great, great advice. Chuck um, I in my suitcase, Chuck,
23:27
Speaker 1: keep copies photo copies because you can't call them z
23:31
Speaker 1: rocks because that's copyright infringements. Right. Uh, they like my passport,
23:37
Speaker 1: like basically everything I have photo copies of and you
23:41
Speaker 1: keep it like I keep it in the lining the
23:43
Speaker 1: liner of the suitcase. Everyone's gonna know this now when
23:47
Speaker 1: they see you traveling. But it's good. It's a good
23:50
Speaker 1: idea to keep them at the hotel, keeps them at home. Yeah.
23:54
Speaker 1: Uh so that you can call a trusted friend who's
23:57
Speaker 1: watching your dog or whatever and say, hey, man, not
24:01
Speaker 1: only was my real passport stolen, my photo copies were
24:04
Speaker 1: stolen out of the hotel. Can you give me my
24:06
Speaker 1: passport number? Yeah? And don't carry things like your social
24:10
Speaker 1: Security card and stuff like that. Yeah. I actually used
24:12
Speaker 1: to carry my social Security card back in the day,
24:15
Speaker 1: like a big dummy. Really, and when I was like sixteen,
24:17
Speaker 1: I thought, man, I was important or something. You know,
24:20
Speaker 1: take this exactly. Do you take social Security cards as credit?
24:25
Speaker 1: Just knock it off my bill? Yeah. Uh So onto
24:30
Speaker 1: the Slate dot com article. I think I think we've
24:33
Speaker 1: arrived there. It's one of my favorite websites. That's a
24:35
Speaker 1: good one it is, so who wrote this? Joe Kio Honey,
24:42
Speaker 1: he's Hawaiian, I'll bet. And when was this? This is
24:47
Speaker 1: this year? Huh February of last year? So this is
24:50
Speaker 1: a current and up to date. Is a dying art
24:54
Speaker 1: and a dying crime in the US? Yeah? And why,
24:56
Speaker 1: I mean, where's pickpocketing going? Why is it vanishing if
25:00
Speaker 1: if you know you can make some money off of it. Well,
25:04
Speaker 1: a bunch of reasons they list. Um, crime as a
25:06
Speaker 1: whole has fallen since the nineties. Uh, people don't carry
25:11
Speaker 1: as much cash. It's harder to rip people off with
25:14
Speaker 1: credit cards and debit cards because you know, there there's
25:17
Speaker 1: more security involved with those. I would say close circuit
25:22
Speaker 1: cameras everywhere might dissuade some guys from doing this. What else, Well,
25:28
Speaker 1: you know we talked about the penalties traditionally being fairly small, sure,
25:34
Speaker 1: but in some cases, in some states, Um, they have
25:37
Speaker 1: raised it to where it's the same as armed robbery basically,
25:42
Speaker 1: so it can be a felony. And um, suddenly you're
25:45
Speaker 1: not just looking at you know, three months in the pokey,
25:48
Speaker 1: which anybody can do standing on their head. You're looking
25:51
Speaker 1: at like five years for pickpocketing. It's gonna make you
25:54
Speaker 1: rethink your your trade, and it has in a lot
25:57
Speaker 1: of ways. Also, apparently Fagan's are dying out and the
26:03
Speaker 1: new generation basically is being blamed for the loss of
26:07
Speaker 1: the art of pickpocketing. Yeah, I thought that was pretty funny.
26:10
Speaker 1: Basically they said, these kids these days just don't have
26:12
Speaker 1: the patience to learn pickpocketing, so it's easier just to
26:16
Speaker 1: get a gun. Yeah. Well not even just patients, they're
26:19
Speaker 1: less they're not as fearful of confrontation again thanks to
26:23
Speaker 1: the gun. Yeah, kids are all stupid stick up men
26:26
Speaker 1: these days. There's no finesse to it. There's not. Uh.
26:30
Speaker 1: The New York Times in two thousand one, they had
26:32
Speaker 1: a stat um in nineteen there were about twenty three
26:38
Speaker 1: thousand reported pickpocketing pickpocketing crimes. About five years later that
26:44
Speaker 1: number had fallen by half, and then by the year
26:46
Speaker 1: two thousand there were less than five thousand, and sadly
26:49
Speaker 1: today they do not even track it. No, it's so lostatistically. Yeah,
26:54
Speaker 1: that's good. We should be rejoicing in this. That's Julian's work. Yeah,
26:58
Speaker 1: he helped a lot yea with the cry thing. Yeah, well,
27:01
Speaker 1: Times Square in and of itself changed entirely. Have you
27:05
Speaker 1: ever seen basket Case, uh, where the guy carries his
27:08
Speaker 1: mutant brother around in the basket and killing rampage. He
27:14
Speaker 1: stays in Times Square And I've never been to Time
27:17
Speaker 1: Square until like way after the crossover, I guess is
27:20
Speaker 1: what you call it to where it's now very family
27:22
Speaker 1: friendly and safe. And I was like, that's what Times
27:25
Speaker 1: Square used to look like. Holy cow, it looks like Detroit. Yeah.
27:29
Speaker 1: I was in New Jersey when it was crossing over.
27:33
Speaker 1: So when I first started going to New York, it was, um,
27:37
Speaker 1: they were still like Pete shows and other businesses I
27:41
Speaker 1: won't mentioned on the podcast, and it was just starting.
27:44
Speaker 1: Like the first uh family like theme restaurant went in
27:49
Speaker 1: while I was living up there. I wonder how many
27:51
Speaker 1: tax breaks that family theme restaurant got just you know, yeah,
27:57
Speaker 1: I can't remember what it was, but I remember thinking
27:59
Speaker 1: at the time, Uh, Times Square, look at it and
28:01
Speaker 1: they're cleaning it up, sadly, no more brown bagging it.
28:07
Speaker 1: What does that mean walking around drinking beer out of
28:10
Speaker 1: a brown bag, picking pockets? I thought it meant bringing
28:14
Speaker 1: your lunch from home. Ah yeah, or lunch pailing it. Okay, um, chuck,
28:19
Speaker 1: there is one place where the art of pickpocketing was
28:23
Speaker 1: revived recently, say around two thousand seven, where Europe as
28:28
Speaker 1: a whole still is rampant with pickpocketing, um thanks to
28:33
Speaker 1: the Apparently, according to the Slate article, UM the entrance
28:37
Speaker 1: of Romania and Bulgaria, two places with legendary pickpockets into
28:43
Speaker 1: the EU. So now people from Romania and Bulgaria can
28:46
Speaker 1: travel around Europe much more easily and pickpockets wherever they stop. Interesting. Well,
28:52
Speaker 1: good for them. I don't know about that, but that's pickpocketing.
28:58
Speaker 1: That's how flesh color of money belts work. That's right,
29:02
Speaker 1: I own one. Have you got anything else? Now? Well,
29:05
Speaker 1: if you want to see some um in late nineties
29:09
Speaker 1: staff members of How Stuff Works posing in photos? Is that?
29:13
Speaker 1: Who that was to demonstrate? I was trying to see
29:16
Speaker 1: one of them? Is that? How to stuffs? Catherine near
29:18
Speaker 1: I think she's the mark in the photos? Interesting? Um,
29:22
Speaker 1: you can write you can type pickpocketing in the search
29:26
Speaker 1: bar how stuff Works dot com. And since I said
29:28
Speaker 1: search bars, time for listener mail. Josh. I picked this
29:34
Speaker 1: one out especially for this one because it involves cleptomania,
29:39
Speaker 1: and I know that's an old show, but this was
29:41
Speaker 1: pretty fascinating, I thought, and this is from anonymous, all right,
29:46
Speaker 1: and it's a girl. Um huh, oh you know who
29:50
Speaker 1: it is because she's a criminal cancer. I recently listen
29:54
Speaker 1: to your podcast in Cleptomania, and I have to thank
29:56
Speaker 1: you for giving a name to the disorder that has
29:59
Speaker 1: plagued me for of the past four years. She didn't know.
30:02
Speaker 1: She had never heard of it. Um. I first started
30:05
Speaker 1: to steal when I was fifteen. I was at a
30:07
Speaker 1: pizza hut with my family, felt a very troubling, consuming
30:11
Speaker 1: urge to steal the silverware. After secretly putting the knife
30:14
Speaker 1: and fork in my purse, I felt relieved and a
30:16
Speaker 1: little guilty. Uh. That day was the start of a
30:19
Speaker 1: theft rampage. I've stolen silverware, especially spoons, from every restaurant
30:24
Speaker 1: I've ever been to, and even one that I worked at.
30:28
Speaker 1: Right now, I have a collection of hundreds of sets
30:30
Speaker 1: of silverware. At one time, I even began to label
30:34
Speaker 1: them with the restaurant's name and the date that it
30:37
Speaker 1: was stolen, but that became too much work. That's like
30:40
Speaker 1: the Pickpocket and the Tinton movie. He has like all
30:43
Speaker 1: of the Waltz he's still in like labels with the
30:46
Speaker 1: date and interesting. Uh So, like you said in your podcast,
30:49
Speaker 1: I keep this hidden and I felt tremendous tension and
30:52
Speaker 1: guilt over the years for it, but never once mentioned
30:54
Speaker 1: it to my therapist. I'm in therapy for depression and
30:58
Speaker 1: depression and anxiety, which I learned is actually co morbid
31:01
Speaker 1: with kleptomania. Yeah, the therapist is gonna be like, why
31:04
Speaker 1: didn't you tell him years ago? Exactly, I could have
31:07
Speaker 1: cured you already. I felt that I must apologize to
31:11
Speaker 1: the businesses. I feel that I must apologize to the
31:13
Speaker 1: businesses in and around Kalamazoo, Michigan. So if you're business
31:18
Speaker 1: in Kalamazoo, Michigan restaurant and you're missing spoons, it's this
31:21
Speaker 1: lady's fault. Chuck can tell you who it is. However,
31:24
Speaker 1: I'm making a change today. Your podcast and my guilty
31:28
Speaker 1: conscience has inspired me to tell my therapist and hopefully
31:31
Speaker 1: be free of this nasty habit. My emailed I was like, hey,
31:34
Speaker 1: can I read this on the ergement? Sure, that's awesome Calamazoo, Michigan.
31:39
Speaker 1: Anonymous from Kalamazoo, Yes, very nice, congratulations and turning over
31:44
Speaker 1: a new leaf. Yeah, tell your shrink about it. He'll
31:47
Speaker 1: probably be very fascinated. And if anyone out there has
31:50
Speaker 1: not heard the How Kleptomania Works episode, it's pretty good.
31:53
Speaker 1: I magically transformed Chuck into a tube of lipstick. Yeah,
31:57
Speaker 1: remember that you were great. If you have a revelation
32:01
Speaker 1: about yourself or you're turning over a new leaf, whether
32:04
Speaker 1: it's for the new year or not, it seems appropriate
32:07
Speaker 1: that you tell us about it. You know where your
32:09
Speaker 1: old pals Josh and Chuck. Um, you can tweet to us,
32:12
Speaker 1: which our Twitter handle is s y s K podcast.
32:15
Speaker 1: You can put it on Facebook. Um, that's Facebook dot
32:18
Speaker 1: com slash that you should know. Those two are much
32:20
Speaker 1: less private than just sending us a regular old fashioned email.
32:23
Speaker 1: To stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com For
32:31
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
32:34
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast,
32:37
Speaker 1: click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner
32:39
Speaker 1: of our homepage. The how Stuff Works I find app
32:42
Speaker 1: has a ride. Download it today on iTunes. Brought to
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Speaker 1: you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
32:51
Speaker 1: are you