Foreign Pickpocket Gangs Blamed For NYC Subway Crime Spike

NEW YORK — Roving gangs of pickpockets from South America were part of the reason crime spiked in the city's transportation system last year, a top police official said Thursday.

The NYPD recorded a 3.8 percent increase in overall transit crimes in 2018, police statistics show. Chief of Transit Edward Delatorre said the rise was driven by grand larcenies, which also increased citywide last year.

Contributing to the spike were at least two "professional pickpocket teams" from foreign countries who move from city to city stealing from straphangers, Delatorre said.

"They pick as many pockets as they can over the course of a week or two and then they go to another city," Delatorre said. "So these people that we arrested actually had no criminal history in New York State."

Cops apprehended a pair of teams from Colombia and Chile, the chief said.

Subway thieves often take items such as cellphones, wallets, credit cards, cash and expensive headphones, Delatorre said.

Police have also had to contend with "homegrown" serial robbers who "work the system constantly," the chief said. He ticked off the names of three alleged thieves who have been arrested for grand larceny multiple times within the transit system.

"We’re working closely with the district attorneys and all of these people are actually in custody right now," Delatorre said. "So when they’re in custody is when we start to see the downward trend again in grand larceny crime."

(Lead image: Photo by David Allen/Patch)