On a recent weekday, Diego Galdino was on the hunt for pickpockets in central London, patrolling tourist hotspots for familiar suspects and telltale signs of those about to commit thefts.<\/p>\n
Galdino, however, is not a policeman.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Brazilian food app delivery rider has become a popular, social media-fuelled vigilante targeting pickpocketing in the British capital.<\/p>\n
He started filming — and then trying to disrupt — thieves in action after witnessing several incidents.<\/p>\n
And his videos on Instagram, TikTok and other platforms under the handle “pickpocketlondon” have proved a hit.<\/p>\n
One posted late July on TikTok amassed nearly 27 million views — another on Instagram showing a suspect spitting at him garnered more than 12 million.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t know nothing about TikTok, I didn’t know nothing about uploading a video,” Galdino told AFP.<\/p>\n
“I catch them stealing, I catch a lot of situations and I upload daily and grow very quickly,” he said.<\/p>\n
Similar accounts have emerged in other European cities including Venice and Paris, as the era of mass tourism, social media and side hustles collides with crime and vigilantism.<\/p>\n
Galdino said he was “completely surprised” by the response.<\/p>\n
“My life’s changed a lot,” he added. Now, he said, he was inundated with media interview requests and got recognised by supporters and suspects alike.\u00a0<\/p>\n
– ‘Injustice’ –<\/p>\n
Galdino, from a family of police officers in Brazil, said he has become expert at identifying likely thieves.<\/p>\n
They appear well organised, are\u00a0often women and work in pairs. They mainly target tourists, dressing like them to blend in, he said.<\/p>\n
Standing outside Buckingham Palace, the 32-year-old said he could change his “perception” while patrolling to create a kind of tunnel vision.<\/p>\n
A network of around 20 other delivery riders helps out, sending tip-offs via WhatsApp when suspects are spotted.<\/p>\n
Once on the scene, Galdino swoops in filming with an attached camera, shouting a signature “pickypockets” warning to sound the alert.<\/p>\n
“Watch out, pickypockets!” he yells.<\/p>\n
His presence is not always welcomed though, and Galdino said he had faced violence.<\/p>\n
But focus, adrenalin and a sense of “injustice” at the thefts overrode any fear, he said.<\/p>\n
“I hate this kind of thing,” Galdino added. “These people get up in the morning … (to) steal. They don’t pay tax, they don’t produce nothing to society.”<\/p>\n
On the streets, locals as well as visitors seemed to appreciate his efforts.<\/p>\n
“Keep doing what you’re doing!” said passerby Tom, 37, after recognising Galdino.<\/p>\n
“Hopefully tourists (who) come to London who maybe don’t know about the phone-snatchers see your videos.”<\/p>\n
Sceptics however, have raised concerns about such vigilante content-creators, arguing they are ill-trained to intervene in potentially dangerous situations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
– Police boost –<\/p>\n
“We’ve got a kind of performative form of crime vigilantism for clicks,” criminologist Jennifer Fleetwood told AFP.<\/p>\n
“I’m sure the guy is very well-meaning, but honestly this is not an effective form of crime control,” she\u00a0added.<\/p>\n
“He’s not going to be out there for the next 10 years, is he?”\u00a0said Fleetwood, a university lecturer in criminology who wrote the book “What We Talk About When We Talk About Crime”.<\/p>\n
London’s leaders insist they are tackling pickpocketing.<\/p>\n
Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan boosted police numbers in the centre to curb theft, robbery and antisocial behaviour.<\/p>\n
“We’ll be targeting hotspot areas with both plain-clothed and uniformed patrols, building on the progress we’ve already made,” the Metropolitan Police said.<\/p>\n
Their statement did not comment directly on Galdino, but it did note a 15.6 percent reduction in “theft from the person” in the six weeks since their boost began April 6.<\/p>\n
However, force’s statistics show it recorded more than 32,000 “thefts from the person” in the year to July in central Westminster.<\/p>\n
That is up on the previous 12 months and a considerable increase on the year from July 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fleetwood argued the social media fixation on pickpocketing risked exaggerating the problem.<\/p>\n
Statistics show such thefts are no more prevalent in the capital than other English cities and regions, she said.<\/p>\n
“I’ve seen so much stuff on social media about London being unfriendly or London being dangerous.<\/p>\n
“But … is it the case that you’re more likely to be a victim of personal crime in London? Actually, no.”<\/p>\n
jj\/jkb\/jj\/tc<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a recent weekday, Diego Galdino was on the hunt for pickpockets in central London, patrolling tourist hotspots…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[34544,748,188,110793,110790,53436,124155,393,4884,2003,257,45621,46237,11966,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-351349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-afp","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-criminal-justice","12":"tag-criminal-law","13":"tag-criminology","14":"tag-deviance-sociology","15":"tag-england","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-law-enforcement","18":"tag-london","19":"tag-misconduct","20":"tag-pickpocketing","21":"tag-tncen","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115043523788075053","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351349","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=351349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}