{"id":207187,"date":"2025-06-23T08:10:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T08:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/207187\/"},"modified":"2025-06-23T08:10:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T08:10:11","slug":"bullring-international-pickpocket-gang-caught-preying-on-birmingham-shoppers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/207187\/","title":{"rendered":"Bullring international pickpocket gang caught preying on Birmingham shoppers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Florin Adir, 21, Esmeralda Negut, 20, and Vasile Curti, 18, were spotted by police targeting customers in the city centre mall<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/0_pickpocket2JPG.jpg\" loading=\"eager\"  \/>Esmeralda Negut and Florin Adir(Image: WMP)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">A gang of International thieves have been jailed for a string of pickpocketing offences in <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/all-about\/birmingham-city-centre\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Birmingham city centre<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Florin Adir, 21, Esmeralda Negut, 20, and Vasile Curti, 18, were arrested by police investigating a series of thefts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">They caught the group red-handed as they targeted unsuspecting shoppers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \"><strong class=\"Strong_strong__e2x35\">READ MORE: <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/news\/midlands-news\/sutton-coldfield-dad-who-built-31886291?int_source=nba\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Dad who built \u00a3180k back garden bungalow for ill father has days to tear it down<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">CCTV showed the group following people around the city, working together to steal cash and mobile phones.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Two acted as lookouts while the third reached around victims to steal the items, <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/all-about\/west-midlands-police\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">West Midlands Police<\/a> said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Officers were reviewing footage of the group from the previous day when they spotted the group on live CCTV cameras at the Bullring on Friday, February 21.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">City centre officers closed in as the group tried to steal from four people, running off when they saw the officers approaching.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Despite trying to escape, Adir, Negut, and Curti were caught and later charged with six theft offences, dating back to last November.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">They admitted their crimes in court but claimed they were not \u201cprofessional\u201d pickpockets and only turned to crime out of desperation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">But police established they had several international convictions around Europe for pickpocketing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Adir, from Wembley, north London, was sentenced to six months in prison at <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Birmingham<\/a> Magistrates&#8217; Court in April.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Curti, who was 17 at the time of the offences and also from Wembley, was handed a six-month youth referral order.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Negut, from Burton-on-Trent, was sentenced to 12 months in prison on Tuesday, June 17.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The group were ordered to pay more than \u00a33,000 in compensation and victim surcharges for their crimes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Speaking after the case, Pc Mat Evans said: &#8220;I hope this sentencing serves as a message to any pickpockets thinking of coming to Birmingham \u2013 whatever you do, don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">\u201cWe have one of the best teams in the country looking out for you, and we know the tactics you are using.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">\u201cThis is a reminder to all of us of how criminals operate, and how to protect ourselves and keep our belongings safe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florin Adir, 21, Esmeralda Negut, 20, and Vasile Curti, 18, were spotted by police targeting customers in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,983,748,9316,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-207187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-birmingham-city-centre","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-bullring","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114731668246020814","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}