40% increase in pickpocketing; Back to pre-pandemic levels

In the first half of this year, the police received 6,500 reports from people whose phone, wallet, watch, or sunglasses were stolen by pickpockets. That is an increase of almost 40 percent compared to the 4,664 reports in the first half of 2022 and puts pickpocket reports back to pre-pandemic levels, De Telegraaf reports.

According to Rene Middag of the National Police, it is mainly “mobile gangs” from outside the Netherlands that strike at big events and festivals like King’s Day and Queer & Pride Amsterdam. They target places where large crowds gather and where the influence of alcohol and party drugs can make victims less vigilant.

These gangs often go from event to event, Middag said. “Recently, a gang was caught traveling after a well-known rock band and eventually ran into the authorities here during a concert in Amsterdam. They had already stolen dozens of phones,” he told the newspaper.

According to Middag, dozens of gangs are active in our country alone. “They are well-organized criminal groups with accomplices outside at a festival, for example. When they’ve stolen a few dozen phones or wallets, they are thrown over the fence in a bag and brought to ‘safety.’ Or they use lockers that are available at every major event to temporarily store their loot.”

The pickpocketing problem in 2023 is on track to reach pre-pandemic levels. In 2019, the last year before the coronavirus, there were 12,852 reports of pickpocketing. During the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when there were significantly fewer events, there were 6,915 and 5,585 reports.