The Helsinki District Court charged a gang of seven Romanians with around 70 counts of theft and fraud on Tuesday. The gang caused a clear spike in Helsinki’s pickpocketing statistics for last summer.

   

A larger group of Romanians was behind the pickpocketing, which occurred in July and August. At least two members of the league managed to escape the Finnish authorities.

   

A part of the defendants arrived in Finland at the beginning of July. They sought asylum under false identities, and immediately left the reception centres. The fact that the true identities of the culprits was not known hampered the police investigations considerably.

   

The Romanian Embassy in Helsinki aided Finnish authorities in the investigations.

The gang targeted cruise passengers in particular,

lying in wait for the unsuspecting tourists in ports. They also took advantage of the crowds in the Helsinki Market Square. At least dozens of tourists lost their wallets to the thieves.

   

If credit cards were stolen, the gang immediately made purchases in downtown Helsinki jewellery and fur shops before the owners had time to cancel the cards. This led to the fraud charges. According to the prosecutor, the pickpockets managed to send to Romania some FIM 300,000, along with furs and jewellery.

   

In one incident, two Romanian women used the stolen credit card of a Japanese tourist twice, making purchases worth FIM 30,000. One of the women posed as a Japanese, and when a salesclerk wondered why she did not look Japanese, the answer was that her husband is Japanese.

   

When the police began to apprehend members of the league in the late summer, a significant drop was witnessed in pickpocketing statistics. The defendants have admitted their guilt to a part of the crimes.

   

The District Court will most likely hand down a verdict in early November.