Onlookers watch hundreds of vigilantes march the thief (surrounded upper left) to the police station after they captured, beat, and stoned him. Frame grab image from video shot by Tanya Malott.
Ourika, Morocco – The pickpocket struck in a flash, triggering chaos that left me dazed, bloodied, and bruised.
The thief suffered far worse: Local heroes chased down and beat him, pelting him with rocks before hauling him to a nearby police station.
The surreal episode began in a jam-packed outdoor market in the heart of Morocco’s scenic Ourika Valley, surrounded by the snow-capped Atlas Mountains, an hour’s drive west of Marrakesh.
Last week, my partner Tanya and I ventured there with a local guide on the third day of our first ever journey to Morocco – the world’s only nation the well-traveled Tanya and I had never visited but wanted to go. The trip was Tanya’s 50th birthday present to me.
Ourika’s weekly Berber market features everything from the mundane to the grotesque: cellphones, sheep heads, flowers, cow feet, fruits and vegetables, and half-skinned alive animals. The Berbers, non-Arab descendants of nomads, account for 60% of Morocco’s population of 35 million, and they are a fiercely proud people with their own language and traditions.
Our guide Aziz buying oranges in the market minutes before the pickpocket triggered mayhem. Photo by Tanya Malott.
As Tanya and I explored the market with our wonderful Berber guide, Aziz, who accompanied us from Marrakech, I at one point pulled a wad of money out of one of my jacket pockets so I could buy Aziz’s family a batch of oranges. Aziz thanked me for the offer but urged me to put away my money. In hindsight, it is clear the thief lurked nearby, spotting my cash and where I pocketed it. He apparently stalked me at a distance, waiting for the right moment to strike.
A few minutes later, when Tanya, Aziz, and I walked into an especially crowded bottleneck in the market, it was impossible to move forward without a bit of polite shoving. I was bumped once on the right side and thought nothing of it. Then I was bumped a second time by the same short, stocky, middle-aged man. I sensed something was amiss. Simultaneously, Tanya, who was behind me, saw a few stray Moroccan bills fall from my pocket to the ground prompting her to say to me, “He just took your money.”
As I saw the thief shuffle away quickly into the masses, I decided in a snap to try to chase him down and retrieve my money, the Moroccan equivalent of roughly $250. I wanted the money back not so much because of its value but because as a point of pride I refused to fall victim to a pickpocket, and I thought I could take him down – perhaps an irrational, hasty judgment, especially since I did not know whether he was armed.
Within moments of the money being lifted from my zippered jacket pocket, the chase was on. As I surged after him, the thief looked back in horror, realizing I was hot on his trail. He was maybe 15 feet ahead of me as I sprinted in his footsteps, with both of us knocking down and pushing aside people in the initial moments of the chase.
I gained ground on the thief before I was suddenly tripped up by a market seller’s ground-level display of pipes and pans, sending me crashing to the ground, bloodying me knees, stomach, and hands. I was embarrassed, furious, and confused about where I was and what was happening.
Then I realized the pickpocket was making his getaway while I tried to re-gain my senses. I crawled for a bit and finally stood up at the urging of local Berbers who pointed me in the direction of the fleeing thief. Tanya and Aziz were nowhere in sight.
Locals were screaming at me and at each other in their Berber language, and dozens of men were running in the direction of the thief, if not in pursuit of him. I heard men repeatedly yelling “Amhar!,” which I later learned meant “Thief!” in Berber.
In my stunned state, locals urged me to go to a nearby riverbank to witness what was becoming a wild spectacle: the capture, beating, and stoning of the pickpocket.
Just before I stumbled to the riverbank, I was reunited with Tanya, who had the presence of mind to snap photos and take video of the amazing scene.
Vigilantes on the far river bank throw a few final punches and rocks at the surrounded thief before taking him to the police station. Photo by Tanya Malott.
Below us in the riverbed, we saw dozens of men beating the thief and pelting him with rocks. Soon the thief was surrounded by at least 200 men, many of whom joined in the melee before marching the pickpocket off to a nearby police station. Blood streamed from the thief’s head. Tanya and I were among at least a thousand onlookers, some of whom urged us in broken English to rush to the police station.
At the police station, we were reunited with our guide Aziz, who we learned was the first to nab the thief. It turns out when I bolted in hot pursuit of the pickpocket, Aziz was right behind me. When I took my nasty tumble, Aziz took point in trying to run down the thief – a frenetic chase in which many others joined in and that ended badly for the pickpocket in the riverbed 500 yards away from where the crime occurred.
Tanya, Aziz, and I spent the next hour at the police station where the thief was jailed. As I filled out forms, signed paperwork, and was given back all my money, we learned local residents were reeling from a string of pickpocket thefts in recent weeks. Local pickpocket victims who heard a thief was apprehended came to the police station to see if they recognized him. The answer was yes – same guy. Police officers said the pickpocket faced at least three years in prison.
Aziz later told us the thief, fearing the vigilante mob would kill him in the riverbed, begged to be taken to the police.
His desperate request granted, the pickpocket might have second thoughts in a few weeks after coming to terms with the notorious Moroccan prison system.
As Tanya and I departed the police station, one local resident after another approached us with this message: “Not Berber,” meaning the thief was not a Berber. Implicit in their message, no one from their small town would commit such a crime. In fact, the thief was an Arab from a town hundreds of miles away.
Refusing to allow the thief to ruin our day, Tanya, Aziz, and I departed the police station and went on to climb a steep nearby mountain, where the views were dreamy.
Aziz and all the good Berber people will forever be heroes of mine, and I am thrilled we were able to rid the community of the serial thief.
Tanya is a superstar photographer. I urge you to check out her website.
