Watch out for that elderly woman with the cane or the mother with two kids in the subway.
They might have just taken off with your wallet or iPhone or other valuables.
“There are a lot of males for sure, but you’d be surprised at the mothers with kids and elderly men and women who are pickpockets too,” Lt. Jonathan Cedeno, an undercover officer with the NYPD’s pickpocket team told The Post
“Some of the mothers with kids are working with other members of their family. Some are not and are just pretending to be a family. But a lot of them have been doing this for a long time and are very sophisticated about how they go about it.”
Wanted photos of those unlikely perps and others, including plenty of men, dot the walls at the underground office of the new NYPD team dedicated to busting pickpockets on the city’s subways, which more than 4 million people ride daily, and sidewalks.
Some of the undercover officers took The Post on a patrol of a crowded 7 subway train from Manhattan to Main Street in Flushing, Queens — a pickpocket hotspot — this week.
Dressed in baseball caps and wearing two layers of T-shirts and sweatshirts to hide their body cams, shields and cuffs, the cops seamlessly blend in with the crowd.
They work in packs using Airpods with phones to communicate with each other while out on patrol, much the same way they say the criminals do.
“They have a unique eye,” Captain James Soares, a 17-year NYPD vet who runs the unit, told The Post of the hand-picked detectives and officers.
“They know what to look for and they’ll follow someone suspicious from the subway to the street or vice versa. You’d be surprised who’s out there trying to rob you. They don’t always fit with the image of a pickpocket. Our main mission is to stop perpetrators right before they are actually pull out that person’s phone or wallet. They want to get them right before [targets are] victimized.”
The unit’s official name is the Transit Bureau Special Operations Division Citywide Pickpocket Unit and it launched last fall, operating out of what one cop called a “secret lair” in the bowels of Port Authority — a mere 90 years after writer Damon Runyon famously spun tales of the pickpockets, “coppers,” gamblers, safecrackers and other denizens of Times Square that became the musical “Guys and Dolls.”
The unit is on high alert especially during the holidays and for events like the Subway Series and upcoming US Open tennis tournament.
There’s been an increased connection between South America and NYC pickpockets since 2018 when International pickpocket rings, originating in countries such as Chile and Colombia began descending on the five boroughs.
Stolen cell phones are sold in bulk by the thieves to mainly South American buyers at a good profit, Cedeno said.
“We spent part a portion of our time reviewing cases, going over surveillance footage and checking out the wanted posters,” Sgt. John Pritchard said Tuesday as he prepared to go out on patrol looking like a baseball fan because of this week’s Subway Series. “Everything is guided by crime trends. We’re primarily transit-oriented but we work top-side as well as down in the trains.”
Pritchard flashed the body cam on his belt.
“Everything is captured on body cam,” he said. “We pull everything out at the minute of apprehension. Everyone has their own technique but we all have it down and can do it in seconds. You never know who’s watching you.”
Cedeno walked through various subway hubs and up the stairs to Main Street in Flushing, his head subtly swiveling on the lookout anyone suspicious. He pointed out several older men standing in the hot sun with jackets folded in their arms — “a dead giveaway so they can hide what they’re doing or taking.”
Cedeno said the 109 precinct in Flushing, packed with open-markets and jostling customers, is one of the most popular for pickpockets.
“Some Asians tend to carry a lot of cash but if it’s stolen they don’t report the crime,” he said. “Makes it a very attractive area for pickpockets.”
Cedeno said thieves often case their victims, watching them go to ATMs and take out money and then following them down to the subways where they try to distract them and pilfer their cash.
“It’s all about distraction,” Cedeno said.
A common scam is for thieves to work in pairs: One will spill mustard on an unwitting victim; the other will stick his or her hand in the distracted victim’s purse.
The most common prize is a big iPhone “sticking out of someone’s back pocket,” Soares said. But the crown jewel for thieves is to grab a wallet hopefully full of cash and credit cards.
“They’re getting a double bing for the buck,” Soares added.
Last fall, transit officials announced the formation of the team, saying there’d been a 51% jump in grand larceny so far last year as ridership and trains grew more crowded after the pandemic. A quarter of those grand larcenies were fueled by an increase in pickpocket crime, he said.
Of the 594 transit grand larcenies so far this year, 189 — 31% — of those were pickpocket-related thefts, an NYPD spokesman said.
Soares advised tourists and New Yorkers alike against keeping any of their possessions — phone, wallet, backpack, purse or luggage — behind them.
“Just pull everything around to the front,” he said. “Even suitcases. Keep them in front of you.”
