Lt. Jonathan Cedeno of the NYPD Citywide Pickpocket Unit.
Photo by Dean Moses
These grinches can’t seem to stay out of trouble.
More than half of all thieves that the New York Police Department’s Citywide Pickpocket Unit has cuffed in 2025 are recidivists, amNewYork has learned, as specialized cops work to curb sleight-of-hand criminals that surge during the holiday season.
The Pickpocket Unit consists of plainclothed cops who patrol the underbelly of the Big Apple in mass transit and — throughout the holiday season — scour crowded locations like the Bryant Park Winter Market, Rockefeller Christmas tree, and more where crooks lurk to pinch the belongings of unsuspecting New Yorkers and tourists alike.
Lt. Jonathan Cedeno, the team’s commanding officer, told amNewYork that cops have spent years blending into the masses and apprehending pickpockets in action to great success; he says the number of perpetrators have drastically plummeted in 2025.
“They definitely got the word. I don’t want to take all the credit. Obviously, it’s not just my team doing all the work. We work very closely with the detective squads and Intel units that work within the NYPD, and we share information also with outside jurisdictions, not just NYPD, but New Jersey. We work with Amtrak, MTA police. We just share information in this pickpocket because the more information we share, the more information we get, and we’re able to be prepared for these guys,” Cedeno said.
Still, despite curbing the crime, many of those who persist are repeat offenders who keep returning to a life of crime, no matter how many times cops catch them in the act.
Even as pickpocket activity has decreased this year, Cedeno’s team has still managed to make approximately 40 arrests, excluding those with active warrants or ICards (flagged for previous crimes). Twenty-six of those 40 arrested individuals are recidivists.
“Unfortunately, it’s a very small group of individuals that continue to do this. They’re well known around the department,” Cedeno said. “During the Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center, we made three apprehensions. All three of the subjects have been previously arrested by my team on other events. So that tells you they only come to these major events to steal phones or wallets.”
According to sources with knowledge of pickpocket arrests, those recidivists have been apprehended dozens upon dozens of times.
One suspect, Darin Mickens, 58, has been arrested 50 times; 42 of the arrests were for felonies. He was cuffed multiple times by the Pickpocket Unit in 2020, 2022, and 2023.
In 2024, he was incarcerated but released in the spring of 2025 — and, police sources say, he has allegedly returned to a life of crime.
Authorities say that some pickpocket recidivists also have a history of other crimes. Another unnamed offender in Queens has previously served time for rape and is on parole, and has since been arrested upwards of 20 times for pickpocketing, but has been released because the crime is not of a sexual nature.
amNewYork reached out to district attorneys across the five boroughs for comment on the release of the offenders and is awaiting a response.
NYPD Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta emphasized the importance of the pickpocket unit, citing its ability to protect the public by blending in plainclothes and apprehending criminals in the act.
“The pickpocket team is so important because they’re in plainclothes, they’re specialists. They know exactly who to look for, the actions of pickpockets, how they move, and more importantly, they get to know who they are, and that’s important for us,” Gulotta said. “That intelligence they share has led to other arrests.”
For cops in the unit, they say it is moments like that which make the job worth it, adding that many times it is not just monetary value that is lost when a person is robbed; sometimes it is irreplaceable moments, like photos on cellphones, that get hijacked in the process.
One police officer in the unit, whose identity was withheld due to the sensitive nature of their work, says it is all about giving back dignity to the victims.
“I know the feeling of getting robbed, because I’ve been a victim myself. So, any complaint we investigate in our unit, we take it very seriously. We’re gonna give back a little bit of that dignity that the person lost. And we’re gonna give 110% even more to try to get the person responsible,” the officer said. “We want this person to stop, and we want the person who has already lost the property, or who’s a victim of a crime, to get that dignity back.”
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