Watch your wallet!

Vu, according to Wen, was obviously a rookie and was not well-prepared to notice the presence of police officers in disguise.

Officer Tong Ming-hui (童明輝) revealed how he catches would-be pickpockets: "We have to bring several changes of clothes, wigs, sunglasses and hats with us to the field each time. We can change outfits as fast as stars on stage."

Still, Vu was smart enough to send all of her cash and jewelry back to Vietnam from Taipei as soon as she was detained at the police station. Apparently, someone else had come to her aid. On the day of her deportation, she even asked the accompanying police officers for taxi money, which she claimed she needed in order to return home safely from the airport in Vietnam.

Another rare case involved a 65-year-old hardened criminal named Yang Mei-chu (楊美珠). Local police have taken Yang, who is Taiwanese, into custody more than 20 times on suspicion of theft and other criminal offences in the past. She was apprehended again in January after snatching a Malaysian tourist's wallet on Tihua Street during the Lunar New Year period. Stolen goods such as passports, ID cards, drivers' licenses, ATM cards, credit cards and foreign currency such as US dollars, Singapore dollars, Nicaragua cordobas and Malaysian dollars were all found among her belongings.

Targeting temples

In fact, any site with that attracts large crowds also attracts pickpockets. A master at Hsingtien Temple (行天宮), one of the most popular Taoist temples in the heart of Taipei city, said the presence of pickpockets worried her. They turn up at the temple more often than before, she said, running rampant on days when the temple hosts religious rituals and is full of people.

Purse-snatchers also temples, such as Lungshan Temple (龍山寺) in Taipei City and Tsushih Temple (祖師廟) in Sanhsia (三峽), Taipei County, that are more popular as tourist destinations. A volunteer in charge of public security at Lungshan Temple said he had become familiar with the faces of pickpockets who made the temple part of their daily rounds. In the past, they tended to snatch visitors' belongings when worshipers were preoccupied with paying tribute to the gods. In recent years, however, they just hang around the temple for approximately 10 to 15 minutes. When they leave, only the temple gods know what could have happened.

Officers Wen, Tong and others believe that most of the pickpockets in Taipei operate alone. In contrast, purse-snatchers from outside of Taipei tend to work in teams of three to four, each one assigned a different role in operations which often involve elaborate ruses used to distract potential victims.

In one such ruse, one team member shouts loudly at a crying child in a large store such as Carrefour or RT-Mart to attract the attention of a crowd with wallets full of cash.

Similarly, if you try to get on a bus and are blocked by a person who all of a sudden cuts into line in front of you to speak to the bus driver, don't get upset just yet. Your first move should be to reach for your wallet and hold on to it. Otherwise, it may end up in someone else's hands seconds and be gone without a trace.