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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...

With the holiday shopping at hand, you might want watch out for devious ones out there to boldly pick pocket you from your hard earned money. Even though the art of pickpocket is on the decline in the U.S., you should still be cognizant of your surroundings and belongings. According to the FBI the drop is due to the trends in our society, most people no longer carry large sums of cash. However, would be pickpocketers can target your phone or the gifts that you just bought. Its highly unlikely that they will forcefully make you go to an ATM...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Police on Sunday were searching for a woman they said pickpocketed multiple people who were outside waiting to see the performers from the Broadway smash “Hamilton” in Midtown. Between May 25 and Nov. 6, six people reported having their property removed as they waited for the stars of “Hamilton” outside the Richard Rodgers Theatre, 226 W. 46th St. The suspect used the victims’ credit cards to buy about $2,200 worth of merchandise at Macy’s, Junior’s Restaurant, Rite Aid, Target, Designer Shoe Warehouse, Burlington Coat Factory, and Duane Reade, police said. “That’s very surprising. I wouldn’t expect...

The world’s most visited art museum is dealing with an influx of unwelcome visitors. A staff walkout over the rise of pickpockets forced the Louvre in Paris to shut its doors Wednesday, Agence France-Presse reports. Workers say that thieves have been showing up at the museum in gangs of up to 30 — primarily made up of young Eastern Europeans — and are responsible for incidents of “spitting, insults, threats” and striking employees and visitors. Staffers “come to work afraid because they find themselves confronted with organized groups of pickpockets who are increasingly aggressive and which include children, who get...

A felon once imprisoned for fraud is raising money in the name of Herman Cain and profiting off of it through a company he owns. It is the second group raising large amounts of Cain cash that has a history of collecting millions of dollars through politically charged mailings and spending hardly any of it on politics. Draft Herman Cain is the latest from two California men who have raised tens of millions of dollars cashing in on causes such as breast cancer and illegal immigration, with little to show for it except payments to fundraisers and themselves, an analysis...

He has a certain air about him... and a hard to describe stride.

For religious conservatives at the Texas Republican Convention, even the song list at Friday's prayer rally suggested dark days ahead for the GOP. "We're going to support McCain," he said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. "He may not have been all of our first choice, but he is our choice." "I'm going to support McCain and try to help people see the reality of the total picture and how dangerous Barack Obama is," said state Sen. Dan Patrick, a conservative talk-radio host with a strong evangelical following. "There is no other choice."

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Bill Barnes said he was scratching off a losing $2 lottery ticket inside a gas station when he felt a hand slip into his front-left pants pocket, where he had $300 in cash. He immediately grabbed the person's wrist with his left hand and started throwing punches with his right, landing six or seven blows before a store manager intervened. He's anything but an easy mark: Barnes served in the Marines, was an accomplished Golden Gloves boxer and retired after 20 years as an iron worker. Barnes said he'd probably do the same thing again under...

A Nigerian man had his right hand severed in Saudi Arabia on Saturday after he was convicted of stealing in the Great Mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest shrine, the interior ministry said.Kurba Thani Mohammad was found guilty of "committing the crime of pickpocketing inside the Great Mosque" at an unspecified date, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.Mohammad was sentenced to the amputation of his hand, and the punishment was carried out in Mecca, it said.Saudi Arabia applies a strict form of sharia, or Islamic law, that provides for severing the hand for theft....

A BRITISH swimmer who felt the pinch after losing his wallet during a late-night dip in the sea was convinced it had vanished - until it turned up clamped between a lobster's claws. The wallet was recovered by a diver who caught the crustacean red-handed on the sea bed. After picking up the offending lobster, he pried the wallet from the creature's claws and after finding a business card inside, handed it into a hairdressing salon. Swimmer Paul Westlake, 30, from Plymouth on the southwest English coast, received a surprise telephone call from a staff member at the salon he...

Cross-dressing teen snatches man's wallet on 'date' ISESAKI, Gunma -- A teen who dressed up in a miniskirt, posing as a woman so he could get close to a company worker and steal his wallet was arrested Wednesday, police said. Gunma Prefectural Police arrested the 16-year-old youth on suspicion of theft, along with an accomplice who helped him carry out the crime. Investigators said the teen conspired with a 24-year-old man, and on an evening in February, he dressed up in a miniskirt and put on makeup to go on a "date" with a 46-year-old company worker. When the youth...

Howard Dean was robbed! If Howard Dean ever had any reason to scream his head off, this was it. The former Vermont governor - whose once-frontrunning presidential campaign ended with a shriek, not a whimper - was on his way last week from a Canadian vacation to a Washington, D.C., fund-raiser. But on his layover in the American Airlines terminal at JFK, he was told that bad weather would keep him from arriving on time at the Women's National Democratic Club. There, on Wednesday night, some 350 Dean fans - who gave thousands of dollars to Dean's Democracy for America...