International pickpocketing ring targeting subway riders

[Shelby2]

This is all throughout the subway system, but thought I would post it so everyone is a bit more cautious guarding their wallets and belongings on the trains.

International Pickpockets Ride New York’s Subway, Pilfering and Profiting

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/27/nyregion/pickpockets-nyc-crime.html

Excerpt:

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.

[Lilybell]

Thank you for this Shelby. I can be pretty lax about my belongings on the subway and needed a reminder...

[JK resident]

This is very common in Colombia. They come here on a tourist visa and go to town. Since most people in NYC have never been exposed to professionals they are easy victims. I have seen similar gangs in Rome, Budapest etc. Also cell phones.

[Minimal4me]

Thanks for the reminder. I think I might have been jostled by two recently - guys with backpacks who wouldn't let me exit the train without squeezing through. I think they were hoping I'd lose track of my handbag in the struggle.