Thieves Make Off with Women's Purses, Steal Their Entire Lives
Even a low-tech crime can leads to high-tech identity theft.
August 23, 2007 -- Purse snatching used to be a simple crime of opportunity. But as women across the country are learning now it's often just the beginning of a much more serious crime -- identity theft -- and it's no longer just the local petty thief who's doing it. It's highly organized crime rings.
These thieves are targeting women as they go about their daily routines - stopping at day care centers, gyms, gas stations and supermarkets. Usually they snatch the purse out of the woman's car when she's stepped away for just an instant. It all happens very quickly, and a number of the crimes are caught on tape.
Like this Tape of Mara Giulianti, the Mayor of Hollywood, Florida. As she pumps gas at a local station, a thief pulls up, crouches down, and in seconds has opened her car door and made off with her purse. "I think the thing that shocked me the most was how incredibly quickly he could do it," says the Mayor.
This purse snatching in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Louisiana shows a truly masterful thief at work. As Kristen M. and her mother load groceries into the back of their car, a car swerves toward them, an arm reaches out, and Kristen's purse is snatched from the shopping cart before she has a chance to react. The thief never even stopped his car. Kristen posted her story on You Tube.
Police advise that women carry their purse with them when pumping gas. Wickie, a retiree living in Forida, had her purse snatched at the gas station around the corner from her home. Her door was locked but it only took the thief a moment to smash her window. "I heard this crash and broken glass. And I turned around and this fellow… had the strap of my purse, pulling it through the window of the car and then running to jump in a pickup truck … yelling arriba, arriba!" she explained.
Laura C., who was dropping her daughters off at day care, and Elyce G., who was watching her son's soccer game both learned the same unsettling lesson: the thieves are sitting in parking lots, looking for victims. Elyce hid her purse under a pile of jackets, but the thieves knew exactly where her $1500 Prada purse was. "That was the scariest thing to me. Someone had actually been watching me and watch me get out with my children and walking into the school. And I just felt very vulnerable," Laura said.
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