City police intensifies campaign vs pickpockets
Acting on the growing complaints of the riding public victimized by pickpockets the Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) has recently initiated preventive measures and public awareness to address the problem.
ICPO Director Senior Supt. Wesley Barayuga said that the campaign is in the form of printed stickers and verbal reminders from the drivers to their passengers to be careful with their valuables. The stickers are now being distributed on the different jeepney routes.
"We know most of them (pickpockets) but we cannot bring them to law because most of the victims are not keen to pursue the case especially when the stolen items are returned to them," he said.
Barayuga monitors the daily incidence from the various reports of police precincts in the city and that the figures vary dependent on public or religious festivities being celebrated.
Meanwhile, some jeepney drivers who ply the Ungka-CPU-Iloilo City routes volunteered to describe the profile and modus operandi of the pickpockets that victimize their passengers on condition of anonymity for their personal security.
"We are familiar with some of their faces but not all of them and their cohorts," they explained. "Basi bweltahan kami (they might take revenge on us)," one said.
The pickpockets are generally male, in their middle 30s or 40s and operates as a team of two or three. They select fully-loaded vehicle (seven passengers are accommodated on each side of the jeep) but they will squeeze in to sit near their target victims. If there are vacant spaces they transfer from one place to another adjacent to a potential victim.
Favorite targets are senior citizens, young student with cellphones and women with bags. Many pickpockets carry a folder, a newspaper or a clutch bag to cover their operations. Some wear hats to hide a part of their face.
Diversionary ploy like dropping a coin or anything on the floor of the vehicle are sometimes used to draw the attention of their intended victims. Others stage a mock shouting match with their "partners in crime." In that fleeting unguarded moment the unsuspecting victims are divested of their valuables: money (paper bills in shirt pockets), wallets, cellphones and contents of the bag which they have slit.
Once the crime is accomplished, they alight quickly or jump off the running vehicle.