It happened to me twice in three days

Trains stopped at Termini due to pickpockets. Now it happens more and more often, almost daily according to the regulars of the “A” metro in Rome. And so yesterday afternoon at around 3.40pm the convoy headed to the Battistini terminus and passing through the central station was stopped for about ten minutes to allow the internal security guards to block yet another group of pickpockets. A witness, Domenico, says: «In three days it happened to me twice – he explains – but I was on the train again when we stopped. While the pre-recorded message “Beware of pickpockets” was automatically replicated from the loudspeaker, a first block of officers stopped on the dock to block some Roma, another boarded probably to look for the rest of the kidnapping.”

THE FIGHTS

The train left after ten minutes, leaving the other trains traveling on the same route also stuck in the queue. Some of the security guards remained on board and continued their checks. It is not enough. Commuters who use the line every day tell of increasingly frequent episodes of exasperation and revolt among passengers towards “unhelpful” people who are caught at work. Domenico also adds: «More than once there have been real fights, so we can’t go on».

Yet anti-pickpocket controls have been further intensified by the police. The most recent is a massive operation conducted by the police who arrested 18 people, 11 of whom were women, all seriously suspected of aggravated theft. In particular, among those arrested was a young Bulgarian woman who was caught red-handed while trying to rob a tourist with the “lining cutting” technique, i.e. using small scissors seized during the arrest. At the “Repubblica” stop, the soldiers of Piazza Dante arrested two foreigners caught in the act of pickpocketing, while at the Ottaviano stop, their colleagues from San Pietro stopped a Romanian citizen who was trying to steal the wallet of a Taiwanese tourist.

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