KIDDIE CROOKS

Bezos Wedding City Gangs Turn to Kids to Keep Pickpocket Crimes Undetected

Venice locals film and shout at roaming “baby borseggiatori” as loopholes let under-14 thieves walk free.

Weeks after Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez’s reported $50 million, three-day wedding extravaganza lit up Venice, the Italian city is in the headlines for a less sanguine reason as tourist gangs are using children as pickpockets, MailOnline reports. Deputy Police Chief Gianni Franzoi blamed a “bubble of legal impunity” in which foreign victims rarely show for court, letting adult thieves prosper. But, reports the Mail, drafting teenagers under 14 years old is safer still given that they can’t be prosecuted. Mayor Luigi Brugnaro warned last week, “We cannot resign ourselves to the normalisation of crimes that damage people’s lives and the city’s image.” Citizen group Cittadini Non Distratti, fronted by TikTok sensation Monica Poli—her cry of “Attenzione, borseggiatori!” went viral in 2023—films suspects and alerts police. Yet Franzoi predicts that in 2025, 900 stolen and emptied wallets will be dumped in St. Mark’s Square. Until Rome tightens the law, Venetians fear more vigilante flare-ups like last week’s mob, which beat an innocent German tourist it mistook for a thief.