My guess: Gypsies. It sounds like their M.O. by having children along for the ride.
I guess the press can’t say gypsies, instead they have to use “east Europeans”. LOL
A bunch of gypsies tried to take my wallet in a Barcelona subway. I grabbed one of them and held him against the train until someone gave me the wallet back. I checked the wallet as they were going away and noticed all the credit cards were there but the 20 or so Euros were gone. So I grabbed the nearest one and made them give me back the money. Later that day I realized I should have made them give me back extra money! oh well. I had so much fun the next few times I was in Europe I trolled through dark streets trying to repeat this to no avail.