Crackdown cuts pickpocketing cases
Pickpocketing cases on buses and at Metro stations in the first three months of the year were down 40 percent on the same period last year, police said on Thursday.
In March alone, police said they had solved about 130 cases with over 160 suspects caught and stolen items worth about 100,000 yuan (US$14,900) recovered.
The figures were the result of an intense crackdown on pickpocketing since the beginning of the year.
Gao Tianchun, head of the squad targeting pickpocketing on public transport, said plainclothes officers had stepped up patrols at Metro stations where cases were most frequently reported, such as those at People’s Square, Guanglan Road and Shanghai Railway Station.
A pickpocket is caught on surveillance camera stealing from a passenger at Xintiandi Metro station on January 12. The suspect has been apprehended.
A pickpocket is caught on camera stealing from a passenger at the ticket machines at Shanghai Railway Station Metro station on April 9. The suspect has been apprehended.
“We have relocated our force partly from buses to the Metro because more and more people take the Metro, and the number of pickpocketing cases on buses has dropped a lot,” he said.
Gao said pickpockets were increasingly acting alone instead of working in groups to reduce the chance of being spotted by police.
“One thing remains the same, that Metro passengers who are mostly likely to fall prey to pickpockets are those who put their mobile phone in the pocket of their coat and look distracted,” he said.
About 10 million people take the Metro in Shanghai every day.
Shanghai police said the city is safer overall with a 20 percent drop in 110 emergency calls compared to the same period last year, with the biggest reductions in Jing’an, Changning, Hongkou, Minhang and Baoshan districts.
Reports of thefts were down about 30 percent on a year-on-year base, and the number of snatch and grab cases reported was down 50 percent with all the cases solved.
Polie spokesman Zhu Liang said that some city districts for consecutive years all snatch and grab robbery cases had been solved before the end of a year.
The number of burglary reports in the first three months was down by more than 40 percent compared to the same period last year, police said.
In half of such cases, burglars entered homes through unlocked doors or open windows, and in over half of the cases the stolen objects were cash, expensive jewelry, and mobile phones and accessories.
