Speaker: Do you remember the story of Oliver Twist, the main character in the Charles Dickens novel? Well, he was an orphan from London, and in the 1800s, he escaped a life in a workinghouse and moved to the city. And to make a living He joined a gang of juvenile pickpockets. They could snatch wallets at lightning speed, entirely undetected by London's elite. See, my wallet! Pickpocketing is still around today, but it isn't exactly the same as it was depicted in the Oliver Twist books. Traditional pickpocketing is common in many European tourist destinations, like Barcelona, Prague, and Rome. But in many places, things have changed. People don't carry around as much cash as they used to. Nowadays, you can just leave your house with just your phone and your keys. But just because we have a more technological society doesn't mean that pickpockets are a thing of the past. If there's one thing you should learn from listening to this show, it's that technology changes. And fraudsters and con artists adapt. Today, I'm chatting with a man who mastered everything from the classic old pickpocket wallet dip. To credit card swipes and other digital fraud that you may have never even considered. I'm Javier Leyva, and this is Pretend. Stories about real people pretending to be someone else. This is James Friedman. He is a master pickpocket. I suppose, like anything, that you study when you're young or you get interested when you're young, you study it without really realizing you're studying because you're just fascinated with something. No different to anyone else in that except that my subject happened to be pickpocketing. James is a British entertainer widely known for his ability to pickpocket. And he's not just any old pickpocket. At one point, Time Out magazine deemed him one of the world's number one pickpocket. He's the only person to have picked the pockets of the Mayor of London, the Chancellor of Exchequer, and the Governor of the Bank of England. Even King Charles himself. Instead of being one of the bad guys, James Freedman considers himself a professor, and his classroom is the theater. He's known as a stage performer with theater credits including The Moment of Truth and his recent one man show called James Freedman, The Man of Steel. S T E A L. I asked James to tell me how he first learned to pick pockets. I suppose three things happened at different times in my life which then aligned to make me the person that I turned out to be. The first was that when I was really quite young, I think I was probably only about seven or I was collecting conkers. Do you know what conkers are? Conkers are horse chestnuts on a tree, grow on a tree. And in the UK, kids collect them, put them on a shoelace, and play a game where you try and smash the other one. It's a playground game. And we were up a tree collecting conkers when these older kids came along and told my brother and I it was their tree. And he ran off with his mate, and I, you know, Ran after them and I could see that the bullies were gaining on us. So I hid and my brother and his friend ran off and they chased after him. And then I waited and I waited for what I thought was a long time. But maybe it was only a few minutes and I crawled out of my hiding place and started walking home and came face to face with those bullies. And they asked for my money. First of all, if I had one coin pocket money, I was a kid, which they took. And then they beat me up and they beat me up badly. I mean, I had a red bloodshot thing in my eye if I knew that it was from a punch and they, you know, they hurt a rib and they, yeah, I wasn't in a good way. And I got home and my mother obviously went a bit frantic. And when my father came home from work, he said, I'll go out and just check. They're not around. And he went out and he came back and said, no, they're definitely not around. They're gone, but look what I found. He said, and he gave me the coin and I promise you, I was well into adulthood before I realized he'd just given me another coin, you know, I loved my dad and he was a very smart parent to just do that reassurance. A few years later and only a film came out, which actually I think won Best Picture, called Oliver. Just a fantastic film. And on a wet holiday in England somewhere, we went to see it as a family. And I saw these things called pickpockets. And all I knew about pickpockets from the film was that they were children and they could take things in a non confrontational way from people who were bigger than them. And I thought, aha, if I learned that, next time some bullies take my I'll be able to get it back, and I won't get beaten up. So James went to the local library, and he asked the librarian, Have you got any books to teach you how to pickpocket? Then, I think she did point me to Oliver Twist, and I read that. And there is, if you go to the original text, Dickens has got some tips in there about how to do it. Suddenly, all his thoughts were consumed with pickpocketing. Then, I was very lucky. A pickpocket called Borra. That's how he would have said it. It was a theatrical pickpocket. And I think the greatest theatrical pickpocket there has ever been. He appeared on a TV show here called The Parkinson Show, which is like your tonight shows. And my father said I could stay up and watch it, so I did. And the next day at school, I was trying to do everything I'd seen this guy do. Borah, the great theatrical pickpocket, had stolen a pen from a man's top pocket, which James could sometimes do. But Borah had also slipped a man's tie off. And James just couldn't figure out how he did it. But by the time he was 13, James was stealing ties and taking all sorts of things out of his friends pockets. Then we had a holiday in Paris, and I was one side of the road with my mother, and my father was the other side of the road with my siblings, and I saw him get his pocket picked by some children who were using a map or a drawing as a mask. And I was screaming across the road. My mom's wondering what's the matter with me. And we crossed over the road. I said, dad, they stole in your wallet. He said, no, that, Oh, and he checked his pocket and of course it was gone. So those things all lined up and I just got interested in it. All these things kind of culminated and it seemed like a central theme in your life where it's almost a way to defend yourself. It started off as a self defense mechanism, right? Sometimes now tell people, these are some steps you can take to make your life better. And some people say thank you, some people say you're paranoid. And it used to be as simple as, what happens if my pocket's picked? And then what happens if someone gets my credit card and for years, I would think, Oh, this is the latest scam or this is the new thing I've just learned about. I will change my protocol. Luckily, James Friedman says that he's never been pickpocketed himself. I've had a couple of attempts. I've had a hand in my pocket. Almost broke his finger taking it out. James said that he could easily use his skills to be a bad guy, but he prefers to use it for good over evil. So I was walking along and I saw a woman with a bag on her shoulder, like an open Birkin style bag I think they're called, with a big purse sticking out. And this would have been about late 1980s because I was in my first post university job. And If I stopped to tell everyone all the time, by the way, you know, rucksacks open, backpacks open, by the way, you know, thing, I wouldn't have time to do anything else. I mean, they're so numerous, but I was watching thinking purse is right for picking. So as I was thinking it, a guy, She was walking in front of me in the same direction. Someone walked in the other direction towards her and stole the purse. He actually, technically he swiped it. Quick side note here. And there are a lot of different techniques pickpocketers use for stealing. There's the swipe, the pick, the lift, and of course the dip. So swipe is a kind of natural motion that. Take something and dip is obviously going into a pocket or a bag and pinching something, or pinch is what you do when you're in there, and another word for stealing. To lift or to boost is to kick it up out of the pocket. So, I saw him swipe, technically, this, uh, purse. And just for people listening, so a purse is what you would call a pocketbook, and a bag is what you guys would call a purse. I've come across this bilingual confusion before. So the pickpocket swipes the pocketbook out of this woman's bag and puts it in his own purse. And he was now, I don't know, 10 yards ahead of me, something like that, walking towards me. And instinctively and very stupidly, I bumped him and took it out of his pocket and ran after the woman to return it. It was really stupid because he could have had a knife. It just wasn't a smart thing to have done. I should have got a description and reported it. But I gave it back to the woman with the words, You've just had your pocket picked, here's your purse. And of course she thought I was the thief and screamed, screamed and screamed. When she calmed down, I explained, no, someone else had taken it and I'd seen it and picked his pocket to get it back, which must've sounded so far fetched to her. She took this thing and on her way. But James didn't get away with the whole situation unscathed. And almost as soon as she left, I felt this hand on my shoulder, like a bunch of bananas in a death grip. And it was the guy who'd stolen it. And to say he wasn't happy is an understatement. He was really annoyed with me and angry. He insisted that we went for a little walk, as he put it. I was on my way to work and he took me first kind of, you know, frog marching me, and then as we spoke, let go of me. But I was finding it slightly scary at the beginning, but fascinating. He was crossed because he thought I was working his patch. That was the first thing. Honor amongst thieves. Then the thief told James that he hadn't done it properly and that there was a better way of picking pockets. And I said, well, I got it. He said, yes, but I knew. Then he tried to recruit me. I said, look, you could have a job that was legit on entertaining people with it. And I remember he said, no, no, I couldn't have people watching me. I watch people, which was an early lesson. To cut a long story short, he was a career criminal. He only. Picked pockets, I think that was his specialty. Different parts of the jacket have different names. There's the jacket or coat pocket, which is called the kick. The kick is where we get the expression sidekick. There's also the pit, which is inside the jacket or coat pocket. It's also called the pit because it's near the armpits. James says that this man he met was a master at picking pockets and nobody, nobody would suspect him of being a thief. He wore handmade suits that I guess in those days were 2, 000 worth. He wore handmade shoes that were more expensive, he had a beautiful watch, he had a gold or silver boutonniere with a single flower on his lapel, and he looked every inch the city gent. But I can tell you, crime does not pay. He lived in dreadful social housing in a place I'm not going to mention because I've always kept his identity secret. His wife, I'm sure, must have known what he did for a living. But if I rang her, and it was before the days of mobile telephones, she'd say, oh no, he's at the office. She meant he was on the streets working. His children, who I think were about my age, I don't think they knew what their father did. He was not rich, he just looked rich because he had to blend in. In a way, pickpocketing is such a romantic crime. We read about it in classic literature, we watch it play out in films. It's easy for us to see in our heads. But I wonder, in this cashless world, is the art of pickpocketing of bygone days? We may have been a victim of it. We may have been conscious of it while traveling. This is a very common experience, but in a way it's almost a outdated crime. Right? Because who carries cash around anymore these days, right? You're right. And originally. I guess the first pickpockets weren't necessarily, you know, stealing cash. I'm pretty sure the first pickpocket thought of it about 10 minutes after pockets were invented, but before pickpockets to use that word, there were people called cut purses and when purses were little bags attached to the belt, they would literally cut the purse. So all these words are descriptive. The fashion. And the change in fashion and pockets and zips and velcro have changed people's techniques. But the psychology of those bad guys has not changed since the first one. And I'll give you an example of how these fraudsters or scam artists evolve. There was, I met a guy on a ship. We were actually going through the Panama Canal, which is kind of interesting. And I noticed he had a very nice watch on his right wrist. I didn't mention the watch. I just asked him, are you left handed? He said, no, why do you ask that? I said, oh, I noticed your watch on your right hand. In Panama, we had a problem, three things, left hand drive vehicles, hot weather, and windows down, and people resting their arms, left arm on the sill of the door while they're stuck in traffic, gridlock traffic was the other problem. James explains how street kids would crawl through the traffic Below the level of rear view mirrors. And they'd reach out and grab the driver's left arm and steal their watches. So this man switched his watch to his right hand. But like James said, thieves are always evolving. We're playing checkers and they're playing chess. We started wearing our watches on our right wrist. And I asked him how quickly did they evolve? Because it's always an evolution. And he said, Oh, within about six months. I said, what was the evolution? He said, oh, the evolution was they would still crawl through the traffic below the level of the rearview mirror, this time with a pin, and they would tap you on your left arm with the pin. You think you've been bitten by a mosquito, so you swipe with your right hand, they grab your right hand and take the watch. Never in a million years would someone think of that as a strategy. It's only because they learned the first bit and had to evolve and adapt. And fraudsters now, and a large part of it is digital, is an evolution. When we come back, James Friedman will show us how digital pickpocketing works. A lot of people don't lock their phones anymore, or if they do, it's something like zero, zero, zero, or one, one, one. If you do lock it with a reliable passwords, your friends, peers, partners, parents already know the code. Just persuade the owner to tell you the passcode without realizing they've done it. James Friedman says that he has several techniques to get his audience to reveal their secret four digit passcode. For example, supposing I knew someone's address, okay, and their date of birth from their registration. If I've got that sort of information before I address an audience, I'll say something like, let's try a game, take out your calculator, and into the calculator, type in your shoe size, and then multiply it by your age today, okay, and then multiply that by the day of your birthday, and multiply that by the number of your front door, okay. And then let's multiply or add the passcode that unlocks that phone. And now press equals, and if you all show me the totals or have a look with each other, they'll be different. And people are quite happy to show those totals. Which is a stupid thing to do, really, if you think about it. Because it's not an anonymous total. It's maths. It's a total made up of Some factors, one of which is a passcode, right? But people think he doesn't know my birthday and my date of birth and my doorknob. Well, I could know all that. Maybe I can put shoe size in, because I don't know the shoe size. And then I'll say to one person who has shown me what the total is. And then James memorizes the total he's been shown. You've got the total and you've only got five things to divide it by. And you're holding a calculator, you can deduce it. So, through some math I don't know, some might say complicated math. James Freedman can figure out a person's passcode. I think that's an overly elaborate trick. If you really want to know someone's phone passcode, all you have to do is stand anywhere within eyeshot, and you can see the code right over their shoulder. So I don't tell, I don't tell anyone the passcode to my phone, including the woman I love. There's nothing, if she wants it unlocked, I'll unlock it and give it to her. But there's a saying that a gambler told me in Nevada once. He said, young man, or son of a young man, Three men can keep a secret if two of them are dead, and he's right, and there's actually there's a lot of truth in that from my magic background as well. Secrets are sometimes to be protected and revered, so don't tell people you're Paskett. But passcodes aren't the only ways people get to phones nowadays. There's face ID and fingerprints too. James claims that he can get around those too. I should just talk about why I'm happy to share these methods, and why the talk that I routinely give to companies and other kinds of organizations, some police forces, It's called how to commit fraud. It's not called how to avoid fraud, how to save yourself from fraud. It's how to commit fraud in detail. And it came born out of frustration. Really. I would get called up by CNN or BBC and say, can you come and do an interview about, for example, electronic pickpocketing, which they said was the latest thing where someone goes past your pocket with a phone like this one and can skim the contact list details from your credit cards. And I'd say, yeah, I can come and demonstrate that. And when I got there, I'd explain it to the journalist and then a compliance lawyer would crawl out from an office somewhere. And this happened, broadcast and press. And they'd say, don't explain it. In full, miss something out because we don't want to broadcast this and someone sees how it's done and does it and we're helping them do it, which is a load of hogwash, because the bad guys already know how to do it. And if the good guys don't know, they can't protect themselves. But here at Creative Babble headquarters, home to hit podcasts such as pretend criminal conduct and the Ponzi playbook, we're a little bit edgy. Unlike CNN. Our legal team, well, they, that doesn't even exist. So I agreed to let James Freedman teach us how to commit fraud. Think about it. If I warned you about a rash of burglaries in your neighborhood, you might lock your front door. But did you lock your windows? Ha, but what if I told you exactly how the burglars are breaking in? Now you can take the extra steps to protect yourself. We don't tell people how frauds are committed in detail. They can't defend. You may be asking yourself, don't do it, Javier. It's irresponsible to teach people how to commit fraud. What if you're giving bad guys ideas? Well, the truth is, the bad guys already know how to do all this. You're the one in the dark. And I guess, depending which statistics you read, maybe one, two percent of people are going to take the information and try and do dodgy things with it. I'm okay with those odds, because if the other 98, 99 percent are educated, the 1 or 2 percent aren't gonna get so far. The bad guys already know this stuff, and the good guys need to know. That's why when you said, Can we explain in detail? Yes, please. I'd love you to. And I agree with that philosophy. I mean, if the bad guy already knows, you've already kind of explained the evolution of the bad guy. The bad guy will find the way. You said it yourself, you know, pickpocketing was invented the day after the pocket was invented. Right, right. The same day. I mean, we can, while we're talking about phones, biometric, data. Now, a lot of phones have face ID or the fingerprint. How can a digital pickpocketer in 2023 get around that? Well, they can. And that's what we're going to talk about in the next episode. We're going to explore all the different ways that you can be digitally pickpocketed and how best to protect yourself. That's next time on pretend. If you want to listen to part two right now, sign up for pretend plus on Apple podcasts, or for non Apple users, you can listen to both episodes on Patreon. I'll have a link in the show notes. Remember pretend plus allows you to listen to all three of my podcasts early and ad free. In fact, right now, you can binge the entire new season of Criminal Conduct. Yep, one membership to Pretend Plus gives you all three shows, so quite a bargain. And you're supporting a little indie show like this. So, I really appreciate it. We'll talk next week. This episode was written, researched, and produced by Audrey Gibbs and myself, Javier Leyva. And it was edited by the talented Puneet Shenoy with the podcast Pundits. So.