68-Year-Old Pickpocket Who Has Been Stealing Since 1985 Arrested After Swiping Another Elderly Woman's Purse

A 68-year-old suspected serial pickpocket was arrested in New York on Thursday, police said.

The New York Police Department believes Maria Garzon Vasquez has been pickpocketing since 1985.

Plainclothed officers with the New York Police Department’s Transit Bureau Pickpocket Unit spotted Vasquez in the Queens neighborhood of Flushing on Thursday afternoon.

"She was very surprised because there's thousands of uniformed cops out here and what you don't see is the plainclothes component," James Soares of the unit said, per local TV station WABC.

Officers recognized her from wanted posters hung up throughout the New York boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn.

When they spotted her, they conducted additional surveillance and arrested her while she was about to steal a woman’s purse.

Plainclothed officers with the New York Police Department’s Transit Bureau Pickpocket Unit spotted Vasquez in the Queens neighborhood of Flushing on Thursday afternoon. WABC

The New York Police Department told The Messenger "officers observed an individual placing her hand inside a 57-year-old females purse without permission of authority."

Vasquez has been charged with jostling hand near pocket and pocket picking.

68-Year-Old Pickpocket Who Has Been Stealing Since 1985 Arrested After Swiping Another Elderly Woman’s Purse

Officers recognized her from wanted posters hung up throughout the New York boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn