A man considered to be Lisbon's oldest pickpocket was arrested on Friday by Portuguese police. He was known under the nickname “King of Trams” and for several decades he specialized in thefts from Lisbon trams No. 28, 12 and 15 full of tourists. He also belonged to the so-called gang of retirees.
The Lisbon Police Headquarters said in a statement that the “legendary pickpocket” is a 62-year-old resident of the Portuguese capital who had been known to law enforcement agencies for many years. It was not specified exactly when he had been prowling the capital's trams.
During the investigation, it was found that the “King of Trams” is in fact the same person as “Portowy Józek”, also known as “Ziutek from Porto”, known in the Lisbon underworld. However, the Portuguese police did not explain why, despite “the recent sentencing of a pickpocket to 4 years in prison for 20 thefts”, he operated regularly on tram lines popular among tourists.
Trams in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal (illustrative photo)Shutterstock
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The criminal belonged to a “gang of pensioners”
The detained man was convicted many times of robbing tram passengers. He was considered a member of the so-called gang of retirees, which also included, among others, people known to the police under the nicknames “Brzuchacz”, “Trener”, “Żul”, “Santana”, as well as a criminal nicknamed “Psia Twarz”.
As reported by the tabloids, experienced pickpockets were more and more often caught during thefts, which the police considered to be “too intrusive”, “visible to witnesses” and also marked by “grabbing of passengers”.
The oldest active pickpocket in Lisbon was an 86-year-old nicknamed “Anibal”, arrested red-handed in May 2023. He was also associated with a gang of pensioners in the capital. The police commenting on his arrest at the time did not hide their surprise that the senior was still “professionally active”.
Earlier, during the pandemic COVID-19“Anibal” was caught after an unsuccessful attempt to steal the phone of a passenger of one of the capital's buses. During the robbery, as one of the witnesses testified, “the pickpocket was dawdling too much.”
Main photo source: Shutterstock