‘Pregnant pickpocket’ grabbed by the hair after man spots her ‘stealing from wife’

A woman who tried to nab a tourist’s bag in a popular Italian beauty spot was yanked by the hair and held until police arrived.

In Piazza di San Lorenzo, Florence, the blatant thief grabbed a woman’s bag and attempted to get away before the victim’s husband intervened.

‘Police!’ he shouted in Italian, while holding onto the would-be thief’s ponytail.

It was only after she was caught that she began shouting that she was pregnant.

Instagram account ‘Firenze Cronaca Pickpocket’ posted the shocking video, writing: ‘This time, two pickpockets, a couple, tried to steal a tourist’s backpack.

‘The husband, exasperated, intervened and reacted forcefully to defend his wife. Luckily, the police eventually arrived, stopped them, and arrested them.’

Victims of pickpockets have begun fighting back – last week, an American tourist was filmed grabbing a teenage thief by the hair after tracking her down.

Footage of the incident went viral and was widely applauded after Christina Cadieu Greene tracked down the teen through Find My Friends, because the thief snatched her AirPods as well.

‘You are not getting away. I’m not stopping, kid. You are not getting away. I have eight kids, you don’t get to me,’ Christine told her.

Days ago, police swarmed Oxford Street and arrested a pickpocket gang in front of shocked tourists.

London’s pickpocketing epidemic

Between March 2023 and 2024, the Metropolitan Police received more than 79,000 reports of pickpockets.

Some 28,155 were reported in Westminster, with one in seven people in the area having something – mainly mobile phones – stolen from them.

This marks a 712% increase in the area from three years ago, and is by far the highest rate of thefts across the capital.

Other areas are also seeing huge increases in reported incidents, including Kensington and Chelsea seeing a 426% rise on three years ago.

Lambeth has also increased by 280%, the City of London by 266% and Greenwich by 245%.

Footage showed one woman handcuffed with multiple police officers around, while another lay on the ground having an apparent seizure.

Elena Venkova, 33, Malinka Georgieva, 20, and Elena Mitkova, 26, were all arrested and charged with theft.

Paul Brown, who captured the footage, told Metro: ‘There was a sudden commotion which caught everyone’s attention.

‘A group of police officers rushed towards three women near the entrance of Selfridges, and within moments, it became clear they were being arrested for suspected pickpocketing.

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