Travellers have been warned to be wary of Artful Dodgers as the boroughs with the highest number of pickpockets in the capital have been revealed.
Tourists are being warned to be mindful after data from the New British Transport Police revealed the biggest hotspots for thieving hands across London.
Pickpocketing covers the surreptitious theft of items directly from a victim, but without the use of physical force.
Westminster tops the list with 20,871 pickpocketing crimes in the past year.
Camden is second with 5,301. It is here that much of the pickpocketing happens in Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist under leadership of Fagin, who lives near Saffron Hill, a street and ward in the south eastern corner of the borough.
Southwark is third with 4,287, then Hackney with 3,160 pickpocketing thefts.
They were followed by Kensington & Chelsea with 2,962, followed by Islington with 2,820 .
There were 2,591 pickpocketing crimes in Lambeth and 1,894 in Haringey.
The data, collated by London criminal defence solicitors Lawtons, also revealed the London underground lines with the most reported pickpocket thefts.
The number of pickpocket thefts on the London Underground has more than doubled since 2021, reaching a record high of 7,899 thefts in 2022.
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