Watch Your Wallet

S, a retired pickpocket who honed his skills on the streets of New York in the 1980s, claims that at the height of his career he could clear up to $5,000 a month (about $12,000 today, adjusting for inflation). But over the years, his income began to fall. “Around 2000, people started carrying less cash, and I, only 40 “career pickpockets” were left in all of Manhattan, and young thieves were no longer apprenticing with seasoned ones, as had previously been customary. Selling drugs was far more profitable. “You don’t find young picks anymore,” one cop told the . “It’s going to die out.”