The Jordan Harbinger Show - 530: Bob Arno | Schooled by the Professor of Pickpocketry Part One

Episode Date: July 6, 2021

Bob Arno is a comedy pickpocket and criminologist specializing in global street crime, is the co-author of Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams While Traveling, and was featured in National Geographic's Pickpocket King documentary. [This is part one of a two-part episode. Stay tuned for part two later this week!] What We Discuss with Bob Arno: How Bob, the son of a judge, got involved in social engineering and pickpocketing for the purpose of entertainment. Why pickpockets are commonly targeted by terrorist organizations for radicalization efforts. How diversionary crime like pickpocketing has changed just like every other profession during the COVID-19 pandemic. How Bob is able to get close to real-life criminal pickpockets and learn their tricks of the trade without winding up in the hospital -- or worse. The psychology of a pickpocket -- what they're looking for in an ideal victim and what you can do to ensure you're not that victim. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/530 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. Some of the good pickpockers, when they want to find a partner, they go to train stations and they see who is hanging. And they watch people and they say to themselves, that guy moves too slow. Look at how he's moving from A to B. He's not going to be good for me as a partner. But look at that guy.

He has a certain sprint, a certain mannerism. I'm going to approach him. And then they walk up and say, here, how would you like to work me to become a partner? and they trained them. So teams of three means that you have one who can distract a little bit, another one who slows it down. The thieves picks it, but pickpocket never holds, so he passes it on to a partner. So if the police catches him two seconds after, he's clean. There's nothing on him. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show,

we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. We have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game. Astronauts, entrepreneurs, spies, psychologists, even the occasional journalist turned poker champion, legendary Hollywood director, or former jihadi, each episode turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker. If you're new to the show or you're looking for a handy way to tell your friends about it, we now have episodes starter packs. These are collections of your favorite episodes organized by popular topics to help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com

slash start to get started there or to help somebody else get started with us, which of course I always appreciate. Now today on the show, Professor of Pickpocketry Bob Arno, this guy, he is a character. He works with law enforcement and European intelligence agencies. His act, he comes out as a hoax speaker like he's going to give a lecture, and then he works the room and goes on stage and shows everyone that he stole from them. You know, like your wallet's gone, your pocketbook, whatever, else is gone. And Bob always wondered if he could do the pickpocket thing, if he could steal on the street. So I get it, right? It's like guys who box or do BJJ. They want to get into it with somebody else on the street just to test their metal. I was like that as a younger guy. I kind of get it,

right? With any skill, you kind of want to test it out in the real world. So he travels to Europe and tracks down the realist professional pickpockets by setting himself up as bait. And that is the story that we are going to hear today on the show. Of course, he ends up befriending some of these expert pickpockets, sharing tricks of the trade, it's as wild as it sounds, of course. We'll also explore the psychology of a pickpocket and what you can do to defend yourself against this type of crime and make yourself more aware of what predators see when they look for a victim like you. This is a two-parter. We did a beast of an episode. I love it. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, and creators every week, it is because of my network.

I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at jordanharbinger.com slash course. And by the way, most of the guests you hear, here on the show, they already subscribe to the course. So come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. Now here we go with Bob Arno. I wonder how COVID has affected the pickpocketing industry. Have you thought about that at all? Like if there's fewer tourists, who are they robbing? Enormously, I can tell you that crime around the world. And by that, I mean diversion theft. That means that grabbing a handbag, focusing on a very expensive watch that some celebrity is wearing in the street of Paris, going on a tour.

in Tanzania, being on a bus in Cambodia, everything around the world has changed because of COVID. Three reasons. A, they're more desperate. So the difference between have and have not is larger. Number two, there are fewer opportunities. There aren't as many tourists to rip off from. And the anger, and I should say the technique has changed enormously. When you say anger and technique, do you mean people are more aground? Yes. Thieves are more aggressive? Correct. You could say that pickpockets, thieves, if we're going to start with them, and then, you know, we have maggers and guys who go into the hotel rooms or those who simply are looking at the pin numbers on your credit card in order to max them out later. There are many, many fields here that we can talk about. But pickpockets, yes, they can be put into three or four different categories. The skillful ones that are ashamed of what they're doing before whatever religious beliefs, but they unfortunately got on this road. Then you have the youngest one who couldn't care less about some moral compass. And then you have the ones who get out of work and some older guy

is saying, hey, I want you to be part of the team. They weren't thinking of going into crime. So all of these people behave different now. Some are very aggressive and angry. And others are saying sophisticated pickpockets for the time being are not stealing. They are going to other countries to work in mania, boring jobs, sorting things, tracking boxes and moving them and whatever. For example, inside EU. Here in the United States, sophisticated pickpockets, they are going to stop being out on subways and hotel lobbies and so forth and kind of focus on other type of crime, basically over the internet. Scam you. one way or the other. That makes sense. That makes sense. And you pick pockets for a living,

but not in the way people might think. Tell me about the stage show that you, that you soon used to do. You can't do it now, right? Or can you? Well, you know, obviously, my road forward, I can do a very short version and I can do a little longer one. And we'll see. The short version is that as a teenager back in Sweden, that's my action. That's what you hear. Okay. I was fascinated with audience participation, comedy, magic, pickpocket. So a very good French guy when I was 18 years old. When I say, good, I'm in professional on stage. He was my mentor for a while, and that led me into performance. But my family,

on one side, my father was a judge and very, shall we say, correct, never jumped the line or the queue in order to get first in line for a ticket. Always behave just the way you should. My mother, on the other hand, used, shall we say, finesse slightly, in my opinion, morally incorrect ways to move forward. It wasn't stealing. But just to give you an example, I'm six years old, and I have to tag along to the market, and she's buying strawberries or blueberries. She would look at three boxes if she would take a few rotten tomatoes or strawberries from one box, put them on top of another one. take the box up, give it to the sick of person behind the stand and say, look, they all rotten. Can I get them for one third?

I can still use them for some marmalade or whatever. And the guy would take a look at them and said, yes. But of course, she did this to manipulate the price down. They weren't all rotten, just a few at the top. I was so embarrassed to walk along with her, whether we were doing any kind of shopping or whatever. She would have things over the phone, how to move forward, they get the tick. for half the price or four. So I learned, shall we say, social engineering, manipulating a mindset, and I knew on the other side my father, which was the direct opposite, that gave me an insight

earlier as a teenager, the manipulation of minds. So when I came out to Asia as an entertainer and as a photographer, I noticed that I was hanging with a few bad people, not because of desire, but because the cheap hotels where we were during the Vietnam War, Hong Kong, Saigon, and so forth, that's where these, can we say, con artists were hanging. So when at time I was 23, 24, I was pretty good at analyzing bad guys versus the good guys. When I came to Las Vegas to work, at that point, I would do little presentations on the side. I was in a casino for a long time, and I did presentations for the police, showing them how pickpockets operate, and they loved it.

And so then when we had 9-11, we had a lot of suspect that the casinos were very concerned about. And when I say suspect, I mean people who were pickpockets, American pickpockets, with of course the casinos were concerned with grabbing them as quick as possible. They were very often grabbed by Muslim extremists in prison, turned not into becoming terrorist, but in the thinking process. So American law enforcement were very concerned with fingering and knowing exactly where were these individuals in the United States that could possibly be turned into extremists due to the bombing.

Why were they worried about the pickpockets becoming terrorists as opposed to like a gang member or some other regular criminal? What specifically about pickpockets could be radicalized? Well, a very, very, very good question. And unfortunately, it's a long answer. Okay. So if you take, for example, most of the bombings in Europe, whether it is in Paris or in Spain or in Rome, the ones that were caught or the ones that died in the incident had prior arrest records,

very often in diversion theft or in dealing with drugs or breaking into homes. So you are already in prison. The guys who are serving time for the imments to put their hands or clothes into these people and turn them was easier than a regular guy. So for that reason, they suddenly realized that I had a skill set, and I'm talking about now law enforcement in Las Vegas, of talking with this. So whenever they arrested a pickpocket in a casino, they would say, Bob, we have a guy.

He's yours now for 24 hours. see if you can find out who is controlling, who is doing this, who is whatever. This is a long time ago, 9-11, of course, whether or not Miranda Rice were broken or not, we don't know. What we do know is Las Vegas was concerned about finding out where this extremists were going because you know, of course, that the nine guys who were caught all had been in Las Vegas some weeks before the attack. So I became good at talking to these guys. building a trust factor, getting into the headspace. So when they were let out and they were going to the mosque,

I would sometimes try and help them find new work. I would be friendly with them in restaurants and building a network. From there, it's built and built so that when I work, for example, in Europe for various law enforcement agencies, we have small groups that meet every six months and we try and look at what's the latest detail. Today, it is not so much about extremism as to seeing the internet and where they are developing skills that are hard to penetrate. You know, how the hell do they succeed in getting the PIN number if they steal a credit card and taxing it out? But should you understand the journey from entertainer into law enforcement? Do you feel there is a grave area here you don't get it?

No, no, that makes sense. I know you did a stage show for a while where you would steal, I don't know, ties and watches or whatever. You told me a long time ago that you can't steal Rolex at a stage show because you have to break it. Absolutely correct. Was that you who told me? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

I do remember a few things. I know for a while you were teaching anti-pickpocket techniques on stage in Vegas to travelers. We'll link to some of your stuff in the show notes. And I know you even now, or at least maybe pre-COVID, were training law enforcement and intelligence agencies. I know you can't say a lot about that. I can go a small amount into it, but I mean, let's separate it too. Teaching law enforcement that I can certainly talk about because, of course, the thing is, if you are a regular police officer and you specialize in, you know, being out in the street and watching these guys on trains in New York or tube stations or whatever,

Metro, for example, you know, you have a superficial knowledge or over the years you see how they operate. But you're not necessarily getting into the headspace. You don't know exactly how they wake up into the morning and who they call up and how they use the diversion and where they sell it and how they manipulate the credit card. So in my case, my strength is that I have spent 20, 30 years befriending or getting very, very close into how they work. And I have been able to film them. Now, a police officer, even if he works undercover, is not going to be able to day after day be out with a small camera and be half a yard away. from the hands entering into the handbag and stealing and the technique of it all.

He may know that once he grabs the guy and put the hand behind and takes him over and do the report and so on, his philosophy is, I am law enforcement, I am honest, you are a criminal, you are whatever dirt. So when he talks to the guy, his lingo and his face reaction and his mannerism is going to be that the thief is very reluctant to talk back to the police officer. Unless if the police officer say, look, you're looking at six years here, you've been arrested before, and if you give me up so-and-so, I'm going to make sure that the judge understands and you're going to get the lower sentence. So it's not impossible to have communication, but I sit on information and videos that I can teach the police precisely how to,

to catch them, see them early. What is the police interested in? They don't want to catch them when to hear a woman screaming, hey, you took my wallet. Right. That's too late. You want to be behind the guy when he's already scanning and glancing. So how do you tell if you take three openings on the doors of a metro?

And around each are 30 people who are trying to shove in at 5 o'clock. Or like in Barcelona or in Paris and London, where you have hordes of people, how do you know who to track behind so that when it happens, you can be there and grab his hand. Right. You're seeing what they look like beforehand. You can see that. That is much more important than anything of this seeing what two fingers are precisely nipping the leather

and gradually moving it out so that the victim doesn't feel it. Or how do they know that that particular phone is much more valuable and breaking into versus that phone? And what is the market value of that iPhone versus that whatever? So the thieves know these things because they were kind of brought up with it. That's all they live. That's their world. So for me, the idea is teach law enforcement how to observe them early, not during the actual incident itself. As far as intelligence community, of course, there are certain things, you know, whether it is seal units or other units that are behaving with certain skill sets.

And they may be, you know, you may have a shop shooter, a hacker, whatever qualification they have inside the unit of 10 guys, 11 or 12 guys. They may not necessarily be superb at certain psychological skills or if they're sent down to Nairobi or, or Lusaka or Hong Kong in order to protect someone or to accomplish something with the opponent. An opponent would be, for example, an undercover Russian guy. Well, in order to invade the Russian guy, he has been taught how to catch or how to see who is an American intelligence guy. So they both are taught at home manners of the kind of clothes, how they tilt their heads, how far, how long time they stare here, how serious are they are they smiling who they see there's a million small thing that the criminals are very good at learning which i know and so i can to some extent so i am not revealing

something here that if whatever if the other side my opponents if they're listening to this they're not going to say ah he told me gold here you're listening to the jordan harbinger show with our guest bob arno we'll be right when it's time to scale your business It's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your Chechings from every channel, right in one spot,

and turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today. Right back. Now back to Bob Arno on the Jordan Harbinger show. I mean, there's a lot of people. people that come on and we have intelligence agents or former, it's all sort of like, if you already

know it, you know what he's talking about, but if you don't already know it, you can't put it together. That's all right. I understand that. It's important to preserve tradecraft, as they say. And you know, ultimately, it's a little bit of a chess game. I move a piece, they move a piece, I move a piece, I move a piece, they move a piece. It never is stagnant. It's continuously changing because the power of balance in Europe is changing continuously. You know, Estonia, a certain group there, are going to feel more this way. Ukraine right now, one fifth of the population is leaning towards one side. All of this is constantly changing, including our own power, meaning United States.

How much money do we have to hire 20 guys to follow just one single guy without him being, noticing it on the streets of Paris? It's a question of money. It's a question of will. And what is the final goal and are the two political parties in agreement what that final goal is? Yeah, it can be a little bit of a cluster. I do want to get back to pickpocketing because you mention what these people look like. What are you looking for if you're training law enforcement or even if it's just you out on a hobby run when you say, okay, I'm not looking for the two fingers in the wallet or in the bag, get in the wallet.

That's too late. What are you looking for? What are the signs that these people have? Obviously, you're looking for them being, what, extra aware of their environment? What else? So you have to understand that there are many, many levels of pickpockets. At the cheapest part, and anyone can recognize that, would be some poor female girls, 14, 15, 16 years old from Bulgaria, Romania.

They've been lumped together in a group. and some criminal gang have gone into the small farm lands in Bulgaria and said, can I rent your girl for two years? Wow. And they lumped them together. They trained them to be pickpocket. They send them in a Volkswagen bus to Paris. And now you have 60 girls controlled by five different syndicates. And every day they have to go out between this hour and that hour to steal.

And they dress in a certain way. scarf and they look fairly elegant. It's not like 20 years ago where you could instantly recognize them because they look trashy and they always had long skirts and so on. But now they go a little overboard. There's a tad too much makeup, a tad too much color, and so they stand out just a fraction. How they behave on a platform or let's say around a Louvre or a Coliseum in Rome or whatever, they are not going to be quite looking at the building and taking up a phone and saying, honey, stand over there, I'll take a picture. They're going to be kind of glancing a little like this at the various handbags, analyzing, can I get in there or not? Is that a good

victim to go for? Is that person 55 or older and moving a little slow? Is that particular person in a small group of three and I can invade them in somehow. So depending on whether we are above ground or below ground, meaning at the bus terminal or in a metro station, those girls are going to behave in a certain way. The police usually can detect them without my health. The next level up, guys who are between 19 and 35 who come from poor area, they could have been shipped in from Chile or Peru because they were very good in their home countries and they were sent over to Paris to work in Barcelona. Sometimes they are there hoping to find another job.

Then the employment scenario went down and now in the bars and whatever some of the good pickpockers when they want to find a partner, they go to train stations and they see who is hanging and they watch people and they say to themselves, that guy moves too slow. Look at how he's moving from A to B. He's not going to be good for me as a partner. But look at that guy. He has a certain sprint, a certain mannerism. I'm going to approach him.

And then they walk up and say, here, how would you like to work me to become a partner? And they trained them. So teams of three means that you have one who can distract a little bit, another one who slows it down. The thieves picks it. But pickpocket never holds. So he passes it on to a partner. So if the police catches him two seconds after, he's clean. There's nothing on him.

So he hands off the wallet or the watch or the whatever. That particular top of a little dream are harder for the police to catch. So in my particular case, I look at how serious are they? How often do they smile? How often do they seem to have a purpose forward to meet at 5 o'clock train? There is a lot of small telltale signs in people in general if you have a purpose or if you are a tourist. smiling, ignorant to everything, dressing a bit silly, over the top, you know, the wrong shoes for the area, and on and on. So you stand out as far as a tourist. That means now I'm

describing a typical victim here. Sure. But for the police, one of the things they want to do is they want to look at the eyes because a thief needs to glance all the time at potential victims. And he cannot afford to glance up and check out cameras. Because, Because if you have cameras everywhere in a train station, the guys who sit and monitor are going to see, look at that guy. He's glancing at the camera. And he calls on his phone to the undercover cop. Track him.

You're going to follow him a little bit. And if he turns around the tad, some criminal just cannot avoid it, stupid as it may seem, to see if they're being tracked. And so every often they do a little small glance just to see, or they look into the glass in the mirror to see if someone is. tracking him behind. A great undercover cop will behave with a bag in his hand and move fast and pass the thief and have a second one. So it shifts all the time because you don't want to be able to have the thief identify that you are undercover. The very, very good guys are going to

work in hotel lobbies or in a train station where you have the restaurant. They're going to isolate people who are higher up on the scale of victim, potentially more money to grab. What kind of hotel lets somebody hang around in the lobby for a year? Right. Like, they can't work that same spot over and over and over, unless they're in on it. Absolutely true. So, you know, you have a variety of hotel theft. You have what we call the breakfast thieves.

And they will come in to hotels that specialize in. in fairly large group of tourists. For example, cruise passengers in Barcelona are going to be at a certain range price-wise of hotels. And suddenly you're going to have 60 ignorant tourists. You're not going to have Swiss tourists who have been told on television, watch out for your bag all the time. Watch out for your bag all the time. You're going to have people who are jolly and happy and go up and take a little more cereal

and another glass of juice. And so they leave the bag behind. And so the thieves coming in pretending to be guests there. And they are trying to avoid having the waiters saying, what room are you staying in or, you know, do you want coffee or whatever? They don't want to have eye contact with that. So it looks, they're coming in as if they were looking for someone that they're glancing for.

They analyze where and then they move up shielding. So that when that victim moves up to get more, now the guy who's going to steal comes over with a jacket draped over. Or he has a hook that slides off from his arm here. It could be something as simple as one of those stands that expands for your iPhone. Are you familiar with what I'm talking about? Like a selfie stick? Yeah, exactly. At the end of the selfie stick there.

So what they do, you know, you can say that it works like a hook. So if the police catch him, he's not having a professional tool on him. He's having a selfie stick. It was maybe under the jacket, whatever. So now if the bag is down on the floor, the thieves comes up, has the jacket hanging over his arm, he lets the stick go down, lifts it up under the jacket, and moves away. And make sure that the victim, there is someone else blocking the visual view back. Right. So there's somebody waiting behind them for the buffet. Like, I'm waiting behind the guy

getting oatmeal, but my partner is stealing his suitcase or his laptop or his phone. So that's one type of hotel. Another type of hotel will be the fine restaurant or the lobby, the lobby is, especially when people are checking in or checking out. So for example, in Las Vegas, checking out time is when security is really on the ball. Because suddenly everyone is there with bags while they are standing there around. You know, husband is up paying and she's standing with two bags. And on top of one of them is her handbag with either a wallet and credit cards and phones or whatever. So if you can go in there and invade, especially foreign tourists, where, for example, they sit down in the lounge chairs that are surrounding where you make your payment. So,

The wife may be sitting there with two bags, and the guy comes up and again slides it out or puts his arm, you know, the jacket over. So hotel lobby is the typical area. We can include some of your public videos in the show notes for people who are trying to visualize this, because you've got some stuff on YouTube that we have and we can show just how. You know what's funny? People think this will never work on me. I would definitely notice somebody coming up and stealing my bag, but like not really, though. You know what the funniest thing with that is, I have so many police officers, friends, who are saying, that's all very cool, Bob, but it's never going to happen to me.

Not a chance in hell they can happen to me. And then two years later, you know, I can't understand how this happened. I was on that subway from the airport in and it was crowded. And for a second, I did this and whatever, and it happened. It's very hard when you travel to continue 24 hours to be on Super Guard and further on. You destroy the fun. If you're going to sort of say, oh, my God, what happens around the corner here all the time, that takes away a little bit of the fun part of it.

Definitely. I am not subscribing here. I'm not saying that you should becoming, taking a wallet with $50 and go to Italy and say, I rather like to go to Italy and see all of the famous thing all the way from the soft, from chill up to Rome and so on. And I wouldn't mind to lose 50 bucks. I'm not inducing you to do it. But, you know, don't be so concerned that it becomes animal about it.

You mentioned, I think this is in our last interview, you said that pickpockets look for people with really nice shoes because they know that they have money in their wallet. Do you still hold to that one? That's a quote from a very famous pickpocket that I befriended in Naples. And what's interesting there is some of those guys ask me to come every Christmas and spend time with them and stay in their houses. Oh, wow. Weird, weird, weird, weird.

I mean, at one point we went there over New Year, and I'm going to the bathroom, and it's all gold faucet, and this is a street pickpocket. He's very good, dresses well, but yet he's a street picket. I'm saying, I'm coming back out from the bathroom, and said, what is this? Gold faucet. What the hell?

He said, no, you don't understand, Bob. I'm only staying here. The boss, the real guy, he's in prison, and he has a sentence of six years, and I'm just making sure nothing happens to his house. So he was told to live there. So he wasn't his house. The big guy, the big mafioso guys there, you know, they make serious money. But from a lot of other human trafficking drugs, whatever.

Yeah. But going back to the shoes, I'm going to go out on the limb here and say, because I don't think you're going to be able to dispute me quite the way you think first you could. A good shoe that is almost handmade, but hands made. but half handmade, let's say part of it. And there are very wealthy lawyers and bankers and people who absolutely adore Italian shoes, including the British handmade one. They start at around 1,400 a pair and up.

Wow. A guy who is wearing that, you can be damn sure, 95% sure, that there is a lot of things to take from that guy who is worthwhile. Is it conceivable that in some fashion right there? who was giving the shoes in order to write about it, and he doesn't have, he has no more in the bank account than you have. Well, that's conceivable, but I'm just giving you the- Playing the odds. You can play the odds on that one. I'm painting it, a picture for you. Yeah, yeah, that makes it look, I've been given a lot of nice things to review, but I know that

they sell more than they give away or it would be a bad business. So I'm not too, if I were a thief, I wouldn't be thinking, ooh, maybe that schmuck looks like he got them for free. So, you know, the point here that we're trying to make here is, yes, there are a lot of things about people, dress mode and what fashion you follow and how comfortable you are in it or whether you're just trying to show off and you, you know, you suddenly got the bonus and you go out and spending $2,000 at Saxon, then you hit the, you go to Paris and you feel like you're big shot. But the big picture, you can't fool. This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Bob Arno. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. It means the world to me. By the way, I know a lot of you want to support our sponsors, and you ask me for the codes,

or you can't remember where the code was. We put those all in one place, Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. So all those special URLs and codes for all the sponsors and products. They're all on that page, Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support us.

Don't forget, many episodes have worksheets. Not all, but many. If you want some of the drills and the exercises talked about during the show, those are in one easy place, that link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. Now for the conclusion of part one with Bob Arno. So you spent a long time pretending to be a bumbling tourist, allowing the thieves to steal,

catching them on camera, and then what, are you analyzing their techniques and trying to learn them yourself as well? Yeah, well, there are a couple of ways here. First of all, if I work intimately, like I did some years ago, with certain law enforcement and agency, I would buy used clothes, secondhand clothes. For example, in Moscow or St. Petersburg, so I looked shabbier than tourists or the local population. I didn't want to stand out because if I'm going to be able to trail or follow behind and

be nearby and so on, I didn't want to look like an American tourist, even though I'm tall and all of that, so it's hard to disguise. But otherwise, when I want to film an actual theft, I behave. exactly like an English or American tourist who is completely unaware of anything that's happening around. And that means my body language and, you know, I take up the wallet and I buy the tickets and then I put it down and I even let them almost see the wallet if someone stands here when I'm buying the ticket and then putting it back in here. And I will have fake or old credit cards or when it does go, I'm not going to be missing.

something. So yes, I do put my up and then Bambi, my wife films or we do it the other way around, but yes, we are definitely becoming the victim. And that's another thing, of course, that it's very difficult for the police officer to do, which is that I have an extra, shall we say, ability to capture this. However, today my library of this of incident is so large that whenever something really good happens in Europe, I get a phone call two hours later and some guy, you know, in Syracial London saying, you know, police officers, hey, Bob, we have this, can I send it over? Could you see if in the background, do you recognize that girl? Does it make mean anything to you? So I will analyze and I sit on stuff that I could never use. I couldn't show you. I couldn't, you know,

give it out to. Even if 60 minutes said, Bob, we want to do a profile on you, not going to happen. Because it's law enforcement, it's evidence footage. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, of course. Are pickpockets in all countries different, right? Like, do you have a difference in Romanian pickpocket, Spanish pickpocket, French pickpocket, New York pickpocket? It seems like there's got to be some almost like cultural differences between how they execute this.

Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, sometimes it's very hard not to be fond of them, meaning to be friend. There are some, especially if they have a little bit of what we call. itinerant traveler. Now in England they called them nomads. Twenty years ago, we called them gypsies. That's not politically correct anymore. You can't use that label because there's stigma attached to it. But yet you have people who are very unfortunate in a couple of countries, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria and so forth, where you had a large percentage of them living. And after the Second World War, they were not given school education

like the rest of society, you know, shunted down, less quality and whatever. So they got less chance to do something really well in life later on. So they had parents who almost pushed them into this sort of culture. They are very emotional, very warm. They know they're doing something bad. But when you talk to them, they will say, you know, I saw the bag was over there or that person had on bad. I am poor.

I need that $200 that sits there just as much as he does. So why don't I have the right? It's very hard for them to wrap themselves around what is mine and what's yours. So, of course, it's hard for me when I establish friendship. I have to not fool them, meaning I don't want to tell them, look, if you befriend me, I promise you you will never serve any time in jail. I want to be somewhat open. Yeah, I mean, look, I understand that it's hard for me to think they don't know the difference

between right and wrong or they can't help themselves? I mean, no, no, no, but you know, you asked, the question you asked me really was, what's the difference between different continents and different thieves? Right. I brought this up as a foundation to say there are some cultures where it isn't as, shall we say, horrible that you're doing this as it is in my, where I've come from. Let's say Finland and Norway. You steal that packets of cigarette?

My God, you took that from me. What hell do you mean? Well, if you do that in, let's say, Ankara or in Johannesburg, it's not a big deal. Well, they were sitting there. I didn't think you may not have thought. So people from different parts of the world are going to behave different. So the skill set, if you take feet, for example, in Chile, they are very fast and quick and smooth. Damn impossible to catch.

If you catch them, you can hardly get them to talk because they're controlled by syndicate, so they will hurt their parents. A guy in St. Petersburg, a good thing. thieves, for example. Not today, but some years ago when the police were underpaid, there were a couple of gangs that were allowed to work for about an hour around certain famous buildings where you have banks and so forth. So because of that, for about 60 minutes, they could steal without the threat of being caught. They developed a skill set that bar none were just simply unbelievably good. And if you take the guys down in Naples, they are absolutely sensational because it's

been in their culture for sure. Not all of Naples. I mean, don't misunderstand me here. But yes, different race, body language, what they were brought up with food, how their parents told them certain things. All of that plays into where they are today on the skill set and the ladder. And you can say that they behave quite different. So if I analyze how they move up and how they remove a wallet, the guy from Italy, the guy from Romania,

the guy from Caracas, they're going to behave different. Who are the best, in your opinion? You know, I ask that question to pickpockets. I said, who do you really respect? Who do you admire? What do you think is the fab,

the guy? Because I want to meet the guy who is really fantastic. And they say to me, Bob, you got this all wrong. There is no such thing as the best. The guy who over a period of time walks away with more money than the other guy, he is the best, not the fact that he could slowly, trajectory wise, move it out and step on the foot with

the left foot, his foot on the victim's foot and the person vicked over or like in Russia, they can cross into a person, something and flat the inside jacket of the victim. So it folds over and lift the wallet in a stroke, just in a slow motion like this. No one stands still. Unbelievable. But if there's very little money, he's not the best. So there are two ways to ask this. One, who has certain techniques that are simply fantastic or who is very smart at figuring out how to make whatever is in the wallet go further?

And then you get into credit card fraud, identity theft, and how. you observe before the four pin numbers that you used in a bank or when you bought the ticket and remember the color of the credit card. But let's assume there are nine credit cards in your wallet. And they observe the four numbers. They have two people on either side as you press in. So the one on the left sees the two number here. They don't even have to see that it says one, two, and three.

They just see that you hit the top row, the second row, the third row. So they know they can figure out exactly what you press. So now they have the combined. Now they have to remember the collar of that credit card. Now they have to tag on to that person. And half an hour after they leave the bus to the train, they are in an elevator up in the hotel. And then they got jostled with the bags and they lift the wallet. Now they can do identity theft.

There is not a good pickpocket team in Europe today who are not getting less than 2,000 from their wallet. Oh, because they're tracking me when I eat breakfast. and then I pay and then they're following me and then they go and they max out my card. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Wow. Today, you know, who wants to have just 60 euros or $25?

It's peanuts. The phone, on the other hand, selling the whole phone. Now, that's a different story. So this could be big money. I mean, if you get one or two people a day and then you get a phone or two a day, you're making doctor lawyer money. Yes, correct. That is if you belong to the operational.

That's why it's so difficult for me to get these people to stop and say, hey, look, here, don't you think you should shift over now? You have 55 years old. Come on. You have a family. You have kids in school, blah, blah, blah. Let me help you to find a regular job. You can have a car mechanic or whatever.

And first they said, yeah, I want to, I want to. But actually get them to make that leap over. Right. Only COVID has helped me. Yeah, I'm sure. Look, you're saying, look, it's a better way. live, you'll make 15% of what you make now. But it's better for you. How is it better? Yeah. I have a boss yelling at me. I have to get up early every day. He's telling me I'm fired with

no warning or I can make five times as much money and get up whenever I want and eat at fancy restaurants and stay at the Ritz Carlton. You know, now we're suddenly talking about a moral aspect that applies all over. Because what about the little firm who import absolutely they know copyrighted infringed stuff from China and sells it without saying, for example, or the ones who are on the dark internet selling just code, credit card numbers. There's so much crime today that isn't simply just lifting a wallet that are on the fringes, and that more encompassing. And figuring out right and wrong. I mean, that is even a bigger issue. People are starting to forget about where this right and wrong is.

Yeah, I agree with you. That's a whole separate show probably. You should be able to hire guys who are really good at that part. Then you get into politics. Pickpocketing is part of politics also. And the reason why is because in Europe, for example, you have different countries that have different measure of sentences or how you apprehend them.

And, you know, all of that is coming into play. In America, pickpocketing is less today. Let's be realistic here. Compared with some years ago, you do not have as many guys who are really good pickpockets as we had in the past. We have teams who are coming in from South America at certain conventions, especially now after COVID and it starts to open up again. But what we do have, and I'm not certain, what do you want to call them pickpockets or not,

big clubs with a lot of, you know, dance and disco type style, their phones are stolen. So a good pickpocket there, sometimes when you catch them, they have expandable clothes on them. Expandable clothes? Expandable under their pants. And you will find 60 phones on them,

shove down into different, they're there for two hours and they take that one or that one because everyone is, you know, dancing and having a good time. Wow. That's a big scene. And the same thing,

outdoor theaters, where there's, you know, some famous group, pop group or whatever. You can imagine just from the behavior. So that scene has not diminished, if anything, it has increased and become bigger. That's 60 phones. I mean, that's, now you're talking like five-figure returns. You've got to remember that not every phone. Am I exaggerating here? Well, I just happened to mention one that happened to have that many, but let's assume that they take 25 and then leave the establishment. Well, only half of those phones are going to be of

value on the secondary market. They were blocked and stopped up so you can only sell them for the parts. So it depends on, you know, what is the state of that phone right there? How good when they sell it on and ship them. Sometimes they shipped in lots of 20

to different other parts of the world where they are abused. As usual, I've got some thoughts on this one, but first, we talk to legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone on why the American media is partially culpable for the state of the world interviewing Vladimir Mr. Putin and so much more. Here's a quick bite.

I went to Vietnam because, as I tried to say in the book, partly suicidal. It was a death instinct. It was like I have no place in the world. I come out of Vietnam and I'm completely zonked and I'm back in civilian society. I'm free. No one's telling me what to do. I don't know a soul. So I go over to Mexico, get bombed, laid, all that stuff, crazy few days, come back in a zoned out and come back at midnight, trying to cross back to border. in midnight, carrying my Vietnamese grass, which I'd smuggled back from Vietnam. Of course, I get stupidly busted. Federal smuggling charge five to 20 years.

Oh, my God. Yeah, serious. That's a crazy punishment. How much grass are we talking about? Two ounce. That's ridiculous. Maybe less. I heard you once put LSD in your dad's drink at a party.

That's a bold move, man. Yeah, why not? Because he needed it. What do you mean? His attitude on the war was fucked. I put a heavy dose of orange sunshine into his... Gosh, man, I really dumped it in. And he got so fucking high.

He never knew what hit him. Do you think you could make a movie like Platoon now? Do you think an American studio would touch a movie like that these days? No, not with friendly fire and killing civilians. No, it's impossible now. National Security Cinema, read it. He goes into detail on some 800 movies the Pentagon has worked on. You have no idea the influence, how deep they've gotten.

What I've said to you at this interview is important. important. If you think about it, listen to it again, you'll see why it's suffocation is in order here. For more, including the lesson Oliver Stone learned when he was a cab driver prior to becoming a world famous director, check out episode 411 on the Jordan Harbinger Show. Like I said, we did a beast of an episode, so this is the end of part one, part two coming out in a few days, or already out, depending on when you're listening, so make sure you go ahead and continue on. Links to everything, Bob Arno will be in the show notes, worksheets, in the show notes, transcripts, In the show notes, there's a video of the interview going up on our YouTube channel

at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. We also have a brand new clips channel with cuts that don't make it to the show or highlights from the interviews you can't see anywhere else. Jordan Harbinger.com slash clips is where you can find that. And I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter, Instagram, or hit me on LinkedIn. I'm teaching you how to connect with amazing people and characters like Bob Arno. My network is vast and broad and crazy deep. And that is what you should be doing.

You got to dig that well before you get thirsty because that's how you succeed in your career and in your personal life, and you don't have to be a skis bag about it. The course is free. Jordanharbinger.com slash course is where you'll find it. This show is created in association with Podcast 1. My team is Jen Harbinger, J.Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Millio Campo, Ian Baird, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others.

The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know somebody's into magic, if you know somebody's into crime, pickpocketing, psychology, Slight of Hand Stuff. Share this episode with him. I think they'll really dig it. Hopefully you find something great in every episode of this show.

Please share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast.

Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter

in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not. The through line is always the same.

Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work, itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.