Another sunny August day in Cartagena. The humidity and heat had finally receded and a blissfully cool ocean breeze blew through the streets of the city.
In the old quarter of the city where the colonial buildings stand, the lively colored paint flaking from their facades, crowds of people are walking.
Mostly it is tourists, of course, but among the souvenir stands and overcrowded cafés the expert eye could find several pickpockets hiding in the side alleys and within the crowd itself, preying on their next targets.

Night was falling as the streetlights flickered to life.
It hadn't been the best day so far for him.
The profit was meager: Some 14,000 pesos and a handful of American Dollars. Enough to buy him some dinner but not enough to pay the old lady from the dry cleaner's for a safe sleeping place in the back of her shop.
Too bad. He'd have to figure out somewhere else to sleep. Or maybe... a thought occurred to him as he spotted a tourist couple with their daughter in the crowd.
The father was carrying the girl on his shoulders. She seemed bored. "Spoiled brat," he muttered under his breath, with a clear touch of bitterness.
But her parents seemed an easy target, nevertheless. He positioned himself near a small souvenir stand and waited for the family to pass by.
Just as he reached for the zipper on the womans' belt bag he heard the voice of the little girl shriek: "Look, daddy!"
Damn! He twitched and instinctively dove back into the crowd.
"What is it, Elena?" the father asked tetchily.
"Oh I just thought I had seen the curator of the Naval Museum, daddy," the girl said.
"I don't think he would ever walk around in this part of the city, my dear," said the mother in a snobbish kind of voice.
"Okay." the girl said, simply. "Can you put me down please, daddy?"
Yes. Now was his chance.
He walked up to the three tourists nonchalantly and easily snatched a handful of bills from the man's pants pocket. Nice. Sitting ducks, just as he had suspected. Now for the girl. She had a small backpack that could be closed and opened with just a single piece of velcro.
Oh please, this was just too damn perfect.
With a quick move he flipped the flap of the backpack open and reached into it.
He turned around, a tiny red purse in his hand and was about to blend with the crowd as he felt a small sweaty hand on his arm.
"Hey," the girl named Elena said, a mixture of surprise and anger in her voice.
He didn't bother to look back at her and just ran for it.
He waited for her to call out to her parents, but either she didn't do that for some reason or he had already made up enough ground so that she was out of ear-shot.

Elena had felt someone at her back and caught sight of the boy out of the corner of her eye. He had her purse! Without thinking, she ran after him, in opposite direction of where here parents were walking.
"Hey," she shouted. "Come on back here!"
She ran as fast as she could manage between all the people on the street, trying not to lose sight of the boy in his red and white shirt.
She finally squeezed her way out into a small side street and just saw him running, taking a left turn into an even smaller alley.
She followed him as best as she could, even though he was a much better runner than she was.
He hadn't seen her, she was sure of that.
After a couple of random turns she found herself deeply lost in the confusing labyrinth of alleys that was Cartagena.
He had to be just in front of her. Hopefully he had stopped running now.
She quietly walked to the end of the street she was on and peeked around the left corner.
There were a couple of trash cans on the far right back of the alley.
And just behind it, the boy was standing, back leaned against the wall of a small building.
He was busy thumbing through crinkly bills and didn't notice her at all.
She tiptoed up to him and when she was a meter away she planted herself in front of him and cleared her throat loudly.

The boys' head shot up and he looked at her dumbfounded.
His mouth opened and a rush of Spanish came out which she did not understand at all.
But something occurred to her. Somehow he sounded very different from all the other people she had heard talking here. As he just kept on talking while gesturing frantically, she shouted "Stop!" which finally shut him up.
"Okay, okay, wait! Listen to me," she said quickly.
The boy was about two heads taller than her but he almost seemed intimidated now, his expression alert.
"You do understand me, right?" she asked slowly.
He just stood there, unmoving.
But his face was telling him all she needed to know. "You... you are not from around here, are you?"
He eyed her suspiciously then, taking a few tentative steps back from her and slowly shook his head.
She sighed. "Okay, well then, where are you from?"
Another moment of silence.
Suddenly Elena remembered that she had just run away from her parents and they were probably looking for her now, horribly worried. She tried to remember how she got here and failed. She had turned left from the main street and turned right at the next corner...and then? She couldn't remember anymore.
"Connecticut," the boy said finally, interrupting her thoughts. He was revealing a distinctively American accent. "If you have to know," he added, somewhat grudgingly.
"A-ha! I knew you weren't Columbian. Your Spanish kind of sucks, you know," she said, obviously content that her assumption had not been wrong.
"Why'd you steal my purse?"
The boy looked at her disdainfully. "'Cause I was bored, you know," he said rolling his eyes.
He threw the purse so it landed at her feet. Elena just looked down at it angrily and then back up at him.
She picked up the purse and checked for its content.
"I could have my parents call the police, you know" she spat.
"Yeah, good luck with that", said the boy with a crooked smile and indifferently walked away from her.
He turned around another corner and was gone.
Elena stood there for a while, shaking with anger until her parents found her.