??huh?? I didn't see anything in Stokie's original post about the 2 thieves being Roma....

Anyway, the buses in NYC sometimes have announcements around Christmas-time, about how one thief will "crowd" or "jostle" people at the door to enable his/her partner to pick the target's pockets -- another trick is for one of the pair to "accidentally" spill coffee or ketchup on the target's clothing and for the other to "notice" the problem and pick pockets while he/she is cleaning the mess off the target.

Any way it happens, though, it stinks.