PTAofPS165Q💛💙 retweetledi
We have a new Times Square scam: Migrant pickpockets. Often children are used as distractions.
There is no data breaking down arrests by immigration status, because we have decided that it isn't nice to ask people if they are in the country illegally.
======================
The area — from Sixth to Eighth Avenues between West 42nd and West 49th Streets — has seen the number of pickpocket complaints skyrocket 222% — to 187 so far this year from 58 in the same span in 2022, NYPD data show.
When they are arrested, the pickpockets tell cops they are from Central and South America.
Police Officer Joe Soldano, a Pickpocket Squad leader, said some of the thieves use children, even infants, to distract the tourists while they ply their trade.
The squad recently collared a mother who was pickpocketing while pushing her baby in a stroller, he said.
“We had the baby back at the precinct and had to go the whole [child services] route,” Soldano said.
Often a pickpocketing parent steers a child to a tourist and has the child “go in front of them, stop short or go to the side of them, bump them by accident,” he said. “And the father goes into the pocket.”
In one recent case, Soldano collared a father who boosted a tourist’s wallet.
“I grabbed him with the wallet in his hand . . . I apprehended him and the kid took off,” he said.
Chell said the level of pickpocketing in Times Square led to the creation of the 13-member squad in April.
nypost.com/2023/09/09/nyp…
English
