Where do pickpockets strike in London?

Phone snatching in London

Police data counts a phone snatched from your hand as theft from the person, the same as a wallet lifted from a bag, so the table above includes both and can’t tell them apart. The Met warns that thieves on bikes and mopeds take phones from people using them near the kerb (Met advice).

Step back from the road or into a doorway to use your phone, and put it away when you don’t need it. Before your trip, note the phone’s IMEI number (dial *#06#) and switch on Find My (iPhone) or Find My Device (Android).

If your phone or wallet is stolen

1. If you are in danger or it is happening now, call 999.
2. Lock or erase the phone with Find My or Find My Device, and ask your network to block the SIM and the phone.
3. Cancel your cards with your bank.
4. Report it online to the Met or on 101, and keep the crime reference number for your insurer.

How to avoid pickpockets in London

The Metropolitan Police’s advice, in short:

• Keep your bag closed and carry it in front of you or across your body.
• Carry your wallet in a front pocket that zips or buttons, never a back pocket.
• Put your card back in your wallet straight away after paying.
• Be wary of distractions: someone asking for directions, an over-friendly hug, or people crowding in on escalators, at crossings and on busy platforms.
• Never leave your phone on a café or pub table.
• Keep a separate note of your card numbers and your bank’s and network’s phone numbers.

Crowds are where pickpockets work, so the busiest sights are easier at quieter times: plan with our top 10 places and central London guides.

Source: the Met’s Don’t let them pocket it.

Is London safe for tourists?

For street theft, most of the risk is concentrated in a few very busy West End streets, and it fell by about half in the last year. Near most sights police recorded a few hundred thefts or fewer in 12 months.

“London is one of the world’s most exciting – and safest – cities.”

This page covers only theft and robbery on the street. It says nothing about other crime, or about crime in stations and on trains. To look up any address, use police.uk. Heading back late? Our black cab fare calculator shows what a taxi costs.

999 or 112

Emergency: a crime happening now, or someone in danger

101

Police, not an emergency; or report online

About this data

• What we count: police.uk’s “theft from the person”: theft from someone without force, so pickpocketing and snatching a phone from a hand, which the data can’t separate. Robbery (with force or the threat of it) is shown apart and includes robbery of shops and businesses (in Westminster about a quarter of all robbery, Met figures).
• Where: every crime within 400 m of one fixed point per place; circles overlap, and the West End total counts each theft once.
• Bands (thefts in 12 months): very high 2,000 or more; high 750 to 1,999; moderate 250 to 749; low under 250. At 250 m Piccadilly Circus comes first, at 400 m Leicester Square, so we name no “number one”.
• Approximate places: police.uk moves each crime to the nearest of a fixed list of anonymous map points.
• What the data can’t show: crime inside stations and on trains (British Transport Police has published nothing since January 2025), the time of day (police.uk records only the month), and thefts nobody reported.
• Tube journeys (TfL, 2025 entries and exits) are context, not a rate: street crowds aren’t all tube passengers, National Rail isn’t counted and squares have no figure. But busy isn’t risky: King’s Cross St Pancras had 9 thefts per million journeys, Piccadilly Circus 167.
• Police areas: the Metropolitan Police, except St Paul’s, Bank and Liverpool Street (City of London Police).