Police arrested 68 presumed pickpockets during the Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) music festival held at Mexico City’s Hermanos Rodríguez Racetrack on the weekend.
Pickpockets are a common problem at music festivals in the capital, where large crowds of people are distracted by the spectacle of the concerts, as well as inebriation from drugs and alcohol. An estimated 287,522 people attended the EDC festival.
One YouTuber named Yulay made a video during the festival to show how the swift-fingered criminals operate.
Yulay was joined by Marlon, a masked actor who revealed to viewers just how easily pickpockets can get away with people’s cellphones, wallets and other valuables when they’re distracted.
“Many people are going to be having fun. These places get crowded. People come who want to take advantage of that. Today we’re going to investigate the pickpockets,” says Yulay in the video.
Marlon tells Yulay that in a festival like EDC, a pickpocket can go home with between 20 and 30 stolen items in a day.
The video shows Marlon taking several wallets and cellphones from festivalgoers, but a disclaimer says it was made merely for educational purposes, and all items were returned to the owners.
The pickpocket says that attendees should be vigilant of their belongings in order to avoid being robbed, especially at night, when thieves use the cover of darkness to get away more easily.
The video was not Yulay’s first to deal with pickpockets. He posted one in July of last year about thieves operating on the Mexico City Metro.
“It’s a well-paying job,” says the “actor” featured in that video. “Those who know how to [pickpocket] well earn up to 25,000-30,000 pesos (US $1,285-1,540) a day.”
In addition to pickpockets, the 2,634 police officers at the EDC festival also arrested seven people for allegedly selling drugs and confiscated around 200 doses of presumed psychotropic substances.
Sources: El Universal (sp), Sin Embargo (sp), Infobae (sp)
