TRAVELLERS BEWARE!!!

South American pickpocket ring targeting Pearson

17 suspects arrested over past year, police say

Matthew Coutts, National Post
Published: Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Visitors to Pearson International Airport are being targeted by an organization of South American pickpocketers, who stole as much as $500,000 from travellers last year, police said yesterday.

Peel Regional Police believe the group is responsible for as many as 175 thefts in the past year. "What we have is an organized group that specialize in what we call distraction thefts, or pickpocketing," said Detective Sergeant Malcolm Bow, a member of Peel's airport division.

"Airports are a favourite because it is a busy place where people are generally distracted anyway, where people are carrying their valuables with them because they are travelling."

The ring has become such a problem, Peel police have assigned two officers to investigate the organization full-time. Over the past year, more than 17 suspected members have been arrested, most recently three Colombian suspects who were arrested on Dec. 20.

Police say most members are from Peru and entered Canada using false documents, almost always false passports from Mexico.

They believe they have come to Toronto to set up an organized crime ring.

"We believe they are living here basically on the avails of theft, they send a lot of the cash they get back home," Det. Sgt. Bow said. The group has also been linked to a series of thefts in hotel lobbies, malls and bus stops across Southern Ontario.

Det. Sgt. Bow said Montreal and Vancouver, as well as a number of U. S. cities, have the same problem to varying degrees.

"What they do is wait until someone is distracted. Very often they distract themselves, especially in an airport," he said. Other times the group will distract the person, bumping into the person, engaging them in conversation or dropping money nearby, while their accomplice will take one of the victim's unwatched bag. "It happens very quickly."

An official at the Greater Toronto Airport Authority directed questions about the pickpocketing ring back to police, saying the ongoing investigation is in their hands.

"They're trying to track them down, they're trying to track the whole thing," she said.