You're striding through a crowded airport on the way to your flight when the well-dressed woman in front of you suddenly drops her purse, spilling change and personal items all over the concourse. Not if means putting down your bag. She might be setting you up for what police call a distraction theft.
Similar thefts happen in airports every day.
There were more than 2,000 crimes reported at Los Angeles International Airport last year, with theft the most common. From L.A. to Chicago to Rome, the tricks thieves use are almost always the same, preying on weary, distracted or even naively polite airport visitors. They've just updated them during the past 10 years. Thieves who commit travel crimes tend to fall into two categories. The first is made up of criminal opportunists, the everyday lowlifes travelers can usually spot.