Pickpockets

Sonya Machorska

Old craft like prostitution. And still “held in high esteem” by the Roma population. Leaders of pocket groups are focused on the adoption (purchase) of white children, so as “not to look into the eyes,” – says one of the former police chiefs of Vidin Jordan Yankov. For a daughter-in-law, pickpockets are considered thick sums. And the craft itself…

Its development begins from early childhood. The father has hung the jacket on a tree, and the little girl must take the money left in her pocket without waving the clothes. If will not work – thrashing. And so – every day. Until you get used to the subtleties. Moreover, if it turns out that a small or ring finger interferes with the thief, it is cut off.

Follow the first “live” exercises. Until it’s time to get married. Or, more precisely, to sell a pickpocket. Because each of them has its own price. They don’t bargain in advance. She is released to work on one of the trains with the longest destination. At the final station, the “spent” is counted. If it’s “decent,” there are hundreds for a thief-in-law. For some, of course, they pay less, but, as they joke about Milena from city Bregovo, near Vidin, they paid nothing, took nothing… because no matter what she stole, she was always caught and taken ” to the heat”.

Many of the pickpockets are touring. They Go to more distant places where they are not known. One of the major thefts committed by pickpockets captured by the police, which occurred many years ago in the Vidin market. Mother and son came to the city from Botevgrad to buy a refrigerator. The woman, casually tossing her bag over her shoulder, decided to look at the market with her son first. At one of the kiosks, a bulging wallet was spotted by two Romanian pickpockets. The theft was easy, but the moment one pulled out a wallet and handed it to the other, he spotted the police and dropped it. They had no time to escape. The woman who was robbed of a purse with BGN 12 thousand did not even feel it and continued to walk and look. When the police called her and asked if she had lost anything, she was silent…

The methods used until recently for this kind of theft by the pressure of an artificially formed crowd have been replaced by movement in pairs or triples. Lined up in a queue in some store (or in front of the cash registers in hypermarkets), Gypsies closely monitor who pays what and what they have in their wallet. To be sure, buy something retail. Usually they are in mourning clothes or in clothes. The victim is scheduled. From this point on, the task of the first pickpocket is to deftly pull out the purse and pass it to the second, disguising it. The third, who is on the sidelines, is watching to see if they have noticed. After the theft, the loot must be transferred in the fastest way to the driver of the group waiting in the cafe or in the car. “Business” is a family, lies or fraud are not allowed.

Another way that jebchiykite use is to pry through a razor-bladed bag that has scattered women hurled over their shoulders. There are not so few cases and open, such as“ shopping ” bags, from which they take everything they want. When they get caught, they scream to create a commotion and a public scandal. Their detention occurs only when they find a stolen amount that exceeds the minimum wage for the country… For a smaller amount, the fine is charged at three times the amount captured, which they quickly recover while remaining at large. They don’t just wear diapers because they know they can’t keep them in the police because of them.

Old craft. He’d been trained for years. The more inventive even pretend to be foreigners to fool the police. Often they succeed, but much more often they do not. Most of them are already abroad. Big European cities attract them like a magnet. They are learning Western languages, they are developing…