My travel involved going through King’s Cross today and having my rucksack nicked. It contained my work laptop, clothes, toiletries. The manner of the theft was interesting and I know that there is probably no hope of the crims being caught, but I wanted to share so that others are aware.
I sat in the seating area between Harry Potter world and the entrance to the waitrose (or is it M&S?). My handbag on my lap and my rucksack next to me on the chair as close to my body as possible. I’m Sending some messages on phone, intermittently double checking rucksack still there and maintaining a peripheral sense of movement because I am vigilant (have lived in London for a few years) or so I thought.
Chinese/asian young lady comes to stand to the right of me (near to my rucksack) and shouts something unintelligable. I stare at her, thoughts of ‘how rude of you to move away from your friends just to stand near me and call to them’. I stare some more. She doesn’t meet my gaze. I turn to who she is supposedly calling to to the left of me. About 4 chinese/asian young people with their backs to us who suddenly were moving away from the queues nearer to me and taking photos of what seems to be nothing. I turn back and RUCKSACK IS GONE. I turn back and the ‘photographers’ have gone. I turn back again and looked at the empty space where the rucksack was and felt a wave of nausea. No, my eyes weren’t tricking me and how was it taken without tipping over the bottle of diet coke perched so close to it?
Anyway, classic distraction technique. Kicking myself for falling for it. I asked surrounding people if they saw anything - nada. I went to the helpdesk only to find out the area I sat in is, according to station worker, the worst part of King’s Cross for thefts. No one would suspect a thing because surrounding people would do the same as me by looking towards the commotion of noisy and baffling flash photography. Station workers and patrolling police wouldn’t bat an eyelid because they would be used to the intermittent flashes of photography among the throngs of tourists.
Is there CCTV? Probably not. I’m glad my handbag was on my lap. I called work and instantly reported the laptop stolen.
So, if you’re ever at King’s Cross, avoid that area of seating and if you’ve got more than two items of luggage, link an arm through the strap of the piece of luggage next to you. If there is any noise or commotion near you, place your hand on your luggage before answering your internal question as to what the commotion is about!