St Julian’s, Sliema and Valletta, in that order, had the highest number of pick-pocketing incidents for 2017, data for the period January to July shows.

A detailed list tabled in Parliament by Home Affairs Minister Michael Farrugia shows that the total number of thefts that took place between 2013 and July 2017 in Malta and Gozo amounted to a staggering 35,624.

Interestingly, Sliema this year had the highest number of pickpocketing reports filed with the police, with 338 incidents. St Julian’s came in second place, with 267 reported incidents, and Valletta in third with 195.

The figures seem to be lower than last year’s, when, in St Julian’s alone, there were 861 incidents of pickpocketing. The number for this year until the end of July – 267 – is less than half.

The pickpocketing figures for St Julian’s for the past few years were; 904 (2012), 844 (2013) 773 (2014), 964 (2015).

Overall, 2016 saw the highest number of pick-pocketing incidents by far, with 2,447 total incidents reported nationwide. In fact, 2016 figures for Sliema show that there were 657 pick-pocketing incidents, Valletta had 313 incidents, St Paul’s Bay saw 105 incidents and Marsaxlokk 106 incidents.

The latter’s rise to the top five is interesting, seeing that pickpocketing reports in this locality were rare up till a few years ago. Only three cases were reported in 2012, while17 cases were reported in 2013, 12 in 2014 and 35 in 2015. This year so far there have been 71 reports.

The same can be observed in St Paul’s Bay, where reports of pick-pocketing have increased significantly from 29 in 2012 to 105 in 2016 and already 63 incidents this year up until July which is higher than total number of incidents reported 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Valletta has not reached the number of reports that were reported in 2016 and 2015, with 195 being reported this year up to July. However this is already considerably higher than the numbers for 2014 (133), 2013 (79) and 2012 (78).

The police last year had said that pickpockets tend to be foreigners from Eastern European. The apparent dip in petty theft cases could possibly be the result of a police operation that was major pickpocketing rings dismantled.

Sources explained to this this newspaper that many pickpocketers travel to Malta in groups of two or three, stay for a few days and steal as much as they can during that time, then return to their country, making it near impossible for the police to retrieve stolen items.