Pickpockets on the Champs Elyses.

The Paris police have recently been cracking down on young Rom pickpockets, often very young girls, who make a days work out of lifting all sorts of luxury goods from Pariss department stores.

According to the French media, these young girls are particularly keen on shoes, beauty products and silk scarves but shoplifting is not their only activity; they are also very able pick-pockets. Police have said that some of the pickpockets are so good that they can even replace the wallet after having emptied it of money and credit cards.

It appears that Chinese tourists have become the new favourite of these pickpockets as for these inexperienced tourists often walk about with thousands of euros on them much to the disbelief of the police who even spoken to their tour operators about this habit.

The police are doing what they can to fight the phenomenon and have identified the main trouble spot in the French capital as the 8th arrondissement which is responsible for half of Pariss petty crime.