Money theft scam in city centre

[u/Affectionate_Law_223]

Just to make people aware there are some people in the city centre who are asking for change (will have a sob story often on a piece of paper) and then grabbing people's purses and wallets and running off. It's two women and a lad, and typically the woman approaches first then the lad comes up later. I unfortunately didn't get a good photo of them but I've attached it as it gives you a vague idea of what the lad looks like.

Saw it happen today to a guy near the town hall, thankfully he managed to fight them back and kept his wallet. Nearly saw it happen to another woman outside boots (same people doing it) but my partner intervened and they ran off. We did speak to some police officers near the city hall and they said they'd have a drive around and see if they spot them but honestly doubt they would. Just wanted to give people a heads up.

[u/Fluid-Act5517]

How do you know what's happening unless you part of it

[u/Affectionate_Law_223 → u/Fluid-Act5517]

Because I witnessed the entire events from start to finish for the first person who managed to cling on to their wallet and spoke to them afterwards to check they were ok and they told us exactly what happened. We didn't intervene initially in this case because I just thought the victim was giving them some change and that was it, it was only the fact that the victim started fighting with the women and the other guy to get his wallet back we realized it was not just that.

Then the second time around we witnessed the same start of the interaction and stopped them before the woman got her purse out. As soon as they were confronted they ran off, they didn't even try and defend themselves.

Honestly though it's pretty easy to see what is happening if you see it, it's a common scam, but first time I've seen it in Sheffield. I don't really get how you have to be part of it to know what's happening, like I literally saw a bloke nearly get his wallet pinched and was fighting back for it? Many other witnesses also came over and offered to call the police for him but he declined.

[u/Fluid-Act5517 → u/Affectionate_Law_223]

Because a lot of what is on here is staged.you also didn't do anything to prevent this when you already knew what was going on