Eiffel Tower and the pickpockets

On Friday May 22, 2015, the Eiffel Tower in Paris closed for seven hours due to staff protests about the increasing pickpockets at the tourist site. Not only do the pickpockets target tourists to steal their money, but they also threaten and assault staff working at the tower.

SETE, the firm in charge of operating the 126-year-old monument, came to an agreement with its workers to re-open. The Eiffel Tower has about seven million tourists a year, and with summer, the tourists increase – and so do the pickpockets.

Pickpockets (tricksters and thieves) typically work in groups of 3-4, but can be in groups of up to 30. They have been in the area for many years. The thieves used to hang around at the base of the tower, but now they blend in with the crowds and pretend they are tourists. They even pay for their tickets to access the levels of the Eiffel Tower. One or more of them distract tourists while one steals from their bag or pockets. To distract tourists, the pickpockets take fake selfies, block people’s passageways, or ask for directions to locations.

Tourists continually complain about them, and this time the staff stopped work. The police department said it would put 26,000 officers and agents on patrol at the tower and surrounding streets this summer to mitigate the problem.

On Tuesday May 26, 2015, the police made a numer of arrests at the tower. A gang operating at the foot of the Eiffel Tower and in the vicinity of the Chateau de Versaille for about two years were arrested. The police arrested ten people in two hotels in Issy les Moulineaux and Meudon. Seven were detained and three were released. Police said the gang of thieves, all friends or relatives, lived in the hotels. They could afford to live in the hotels because they make 4,000-5,000 euros a day from pickpocketting, said the police. The arrests took several months of planning, beginning in September 2014 using video surveillance (Le Figaro, May 29, 2015).

The police said it was a coincidence that the large-scale arrests were undertaken a few days after the staff protested the increasing number of thieves. However, this summer, more police will be on patrol.

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