There have been a lot of discussions of pickpocketing on this forum.
The January 7 issue of the New Yorker has an article called "A Pickpocket's Tale", about Apollo Robbins, America's greatest [legal] pickpocket. You may have seen him on television from Las Vegas.
While he is an entertainer, there is quite a lot about how pickpockets work to distract you. The techniques of the pickpockets we see in the Paris subways or at the Trevi Fountain or in the Passeig are happily pretty crude. Robbins himself could have your waist belt off and you would never even know it.
Some of the techniques will be familiar to readers of this forum, some are good things to watch out for.
The Ultimate Pick Pocket: New Yorker
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I was once in a restaurant in Palm Springs when a magician went from table to table doing amazing tricks. At the next table he did a couple of tricks, went to leave, turned back as if he'd forgotten something and handed the lady the watch he had taken from her wrist! We were pretty impressed.
We got talking with the couple and the woman said she rarely wore that particular watch because she had such a hard time doing up the strap! Yet the magician removed it without her knowing and with probably 20 or more people watching him.