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International Pickpockets Ride New York’s Subway, Pilfering and Profiting
The New York Times ^ | 27 Jan 2019 | Michael Wilson

Posted on 01/28/2019 8:08:47 AM PST by Theoria

A man and woman walked out of a subway car at the 51st Street station in Manhattan and darted into the next one on the same train. A plainclothes police officer noticed.

It was rush hour on a Tuesday evening in September on the busy No. 6 line. The officer watched as the woman dipped her hand into a commuter’s purse while her partner stood in front of her, shielding her from view, according to the officer’s affidavit. The woman lifted out a wallet, and the officer and his partners closed in.

She threw the wallet to the ground, and the commuter quickly identified it as hers. The woman, Jenny Gomez Velandia, 27, and her accomplice, John Diaz-Albarracin, 31, were arrested, according to a criminal complaint. What seemed like a routine pickpocketing had been thwarted.

But the suspects were not routine. Unlike most pickpockets, they had no criminal history in New York City. They were not locals. They were from Colombia and had come to New York for the purpose of stealing wallets on subways, one of several international pickpocket rings to descend on the transit system in 2018, the police said.

“They come, they do what they can do, then they move,” said Chief Edward Delatorre, who leads the Police Department’s transit bureau. The woman and man arrested in September were tied to nine other thefts in the subway, the police said.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; US: New York
KEYWORDS: columbia; newyork; nyc; pickpocket; subway
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To: Theoria

NY is turning into a third world sh*thole like Sao Paulo.


41 posted on 01/28/2019 10:20:43 AM PST by shanover (...To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.-S.Adams)
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To: Theoria

The headline cites “International” thieves...from France? Germany?
Oh no, not those innocent family people from south of the border.


42 posted on 01/28/2019 11:15:13 AM PST by Veto! (Veto! (Political Correctness Offends Me))
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To: vette6387

You’re mind is somewhere in 1970. Brooklyn is absolutely beautiful, although almost as expensive as Manhattan these days. Queens and Harlem are both very nice now too. There’s some bad pockets, but they’re easily avoidable. And stay out of the Bronx.


43 posted on 01/28/2019 11:20:06 AM PST by dead (Our next president is going to be sooooo boring.)
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To: dfwgator

Smart. Also smart are the crossbody bags with wallet as part of the bag. You can’t get it out. You’d have to do harm to the woman wearing it first and pickpockets will choose another victim.


44 posted on 01/28/2019 11:22:15 AM PST by Yaelle (Presentstitvdx.)
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To: vette6387
...New York City! America’s premiere $hit hole!

I have to disagree. San Franshitco seems to have taken the honor, literally, by using the sidewalks as their preferred dumping ground. I could post a picture...but...nay,nay.

45 posted on 01/28/2019 1:51:09 PM PST by pilipo (We are not free.)
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To: Steely Tom

Remove their thumb(s).


46 posted on 01/28/2019 3:50:49 PM PST by S.O.S121.500 (Had ENOUGH Yet ? ........................ Enforce the Bill of Rights .........It is the LAW...)
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To: pilipo

“I have to disagree. San Franshitco seems to have taken the honor, literally, by using the sidewalks as their preferred dumping ground. I could post a picture...but...nay,nay.”

But Size Matters, and as $hitty as SF is today, it’s less than a tenth the size of NYC.


47 posted on 01/28/2019 6:50:32 PM PST by vette6387 (Fire Mueller)
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