A 57-year-old Italian woman at war with pickpockets: her TikTok videos are causing the buzz!

Her name is Monica, she is 57 years old, and she scares away pickpockets in the streets of Italy.

Besides, since we’re talking about Italy, you probably don’t want to miss Stéphane Bern appearing in the costume of a certain Ezio Auditore.

In Italy, volunteers go hunting for pickpockets

For quite some time, Venice has been a particularly popular city for tourists. Attractive in many ways, it is nevertheless an ideal target for pickpockets. That’s why, for more than 30 years, an Italian woman named Monica has made it her goal to warn visitors when someone with bad intentions is about to pickpocket them. Monica did not embark on this noble cause alone, since she is part of a group of no less than 40 people whose mission is the same: to protect tourists and residents of Venice from potential thieves.

Called “Cittadini Non Distratti”, which can simply be translated as “non-distracted citizens”, this group of volunteers spend most of their time wandering the streets of the famous Italian city. As you will have understood, the idea is to prevent people from having their money, their valuables, or their identity papers stolen. But if the actions of this Venetian collective are only beginning to go viral, it’s for the simple and good reason that videos have been shared on Facebook and TikTok… and they obviously haven’t gone unnoticed.

A TikTok account is creating buzz by alerting tourists to the presence of thieves

Annoyed by the actions of pickpockets, Monica recently took the initiative to expose them publicly on social networks. In June 2023, she then decided to launch a TikTok account (cittadininondistratti2) which already totals more than 400,000 subscribers and 11 million likes, reports us. West France. The concept of the videos is simple: the 57-year-old woman films the scene with a smartphone and chases the individuals in the middle of the crowd in order to surprise them with their hands in the bag. She then proclaims loud and clear: Watch out, pickpockets! » Enough to scare away thieves like rabbits!

In the columns of Newsweek, Monica claimed that there was a serious lack of prevention against thieves on the streets of Venice (and other cities in Italy). With her videos, she therefore wishes to warn tourists of the danger they run, but also to denounce this problem which can all too often taint the stay of tourists. Either way, the videos shared by Cittadini Non Distratti are hugely successful on TikTok. Internet users have not failed to congratulate and thank Monica for her actions in the busiest places in Venice. These kinds of videos are sure to be more interesting than the new trendy silly and deadly challenge.

Sources: Newsweek, West France