You go about your life, and suddenly you realise – someone has entered your space, put a hand in your pocket or purse unnoticed, or you come home and find the door forced open and your possessions gone. How can this be? You have not realised it at all and now you stand there, muffled, shocked, robbed – manipulated.

I recently bumped into a friend who had been robbed of her possessions in the middle of the day at the middle of a busy airport with security cameras everywhere. The perpetrator wa...