Easy Pickings : Crime: Pickpockets prey on tired, distracted Christmas shoppers who are flush with cash and credit cards. Along with the money, they rob people of the holiday spirit.

Ah, yes, the holidays--a time when Christmas shoppers, flush with cash and credit cards, are often tired, distracted, bogged down with purchases and crammed into jostling masses.

In short, they are the perfect target for pickpockets.

Police say the light-fingered pilferers of purse and pocket operate all year round in the Westside, concentrating on the crowds that gather at posh malls and tourist spots like the Farmers Market and Mann’s Chinese Theatre.

But the crooks are really in their element from the day after Thanksgiving until the midnight before Christmas, police say.

Only a handful of shoppers fall victim to pickpockets in a particular mall on any given day. But the crimes add up, police say, especially when a professional group is at work. And the personal toll on Christmas shoppers can be devastating.

“They really crush people at Christmastime--everything is gone in a matter of seconds,” said Detective Bob Ramos, a Los Angeles Police Department bunco expert. “Most victims have no idea they’ve been pickpocketed.”

Details of the extent of the problem are about as sketchy as the men and women who orchestrate the thefts, police say. Most victims assume they lost their wallets, or assume there is no use in reporting the crime to police.

“You just never know when or where they’re going to hit,” LAPD Sgt. Dennis Adams said. “But they’re out there. You can count on it.”

And if you think they have even a glimmer of remorse for Christmas shoppers, think again.

“These people (couldn’t) give a damn what time of year it is,” said Adams, head of the bunco unit and pickpocket detail. “They will pick pockets at a funeral.”

As far as Suzanne Benson is concerned, the pickpocket who lifted her wallet on a Nov. 25 excursion to the Beverly Center not only stole $300 and all her checks and credit cards, but robbed her of her Christmas spirit as well.

It was the second time in three years that pickpockets opened Benson’s purse while she shopped at the massive shopping complex--the first time as she rode the escalator in 1989, and this time as she rode an elevator, she said.

“Losing $300 at a time like this--that hurts,” said Benson, a Beverly Hills special effects producer. She was victimized even though her first loss put her on the alert for pickpockets, and careful enough to keep her purse shut and in front of her at all times.

She suspects she was robbed by a man and woman standing in front of her, both of whom had what appeared to be dry cleaning draped over an arm--a common ploy that allows pickpockets to steal a wallet and then hand it off to an accomplice.

Because her wallet contained all her identification, Benson has been trying to pay for gifts by convincing skeptical store employees to accept the checks--not printed with her name and address--that she got from her bank, without having picture identification to prove who she is. Many stores aren’t buying her sad story, she laments, no matter the season.

“People look at you, especially at Christmas, like you’re nuts,” she said. “It has been a nightmare.”

Police have no suspects in the theft, and say they may have to call Benson in to look at mug shots of known pickpockets. In the meantime, Benson says, she lives in fear that the pickpockets will use the wealth of personal information they stole from her.

“It is very frightening,” she says. “Someone has my name, address and everything.”

Benson said Beverly Center security guards told her that pickpockets had been “out in force, working the elevators” that day.

Representatives of the mall’s security detail, and the blue-uniformed guards that wander the complex, refused to discuss specific numbers of pickpocket incidents.

One night this week, a security guard observed harried shoppers packing themselves onto a nearby escalator, absent-mindedly gazing at the Christmas ornaments decking the halls while Yuletide elevator music filled the center’s cavernous atrium.

Nodding his head toward the escalator, and to another burst of shoppers streaming out of an elevator, the guard said pockets and purses are being picked with regularity.

“The stories I could tell!” he said, covering his badge. “I walk around here, and I’m always reaching back for my wallet to see if it’s still there.”

But Larry Beermann, general manager of the Beverly Center, said pickpockets are “not a huge problem. I’d imagine it happens wherever crowds are, but I wouldn’t characterize it as a major crime wave.”

Beermann said that although incidents are rare, customers should be cautious. “You see women standing in line, writing out a check and then not shutting their purses. They can be targets,” he said. “So can men who put wallets in pockets that don’t button.”

When told of Benson’s tribulations, Beermann conceded that the Beverly Center has had “incidents in the elevator. But we don’t know of (an organized) group of people who are doing it.”

Representatives of other major Westside malls--Century City Shopping Center, Westside Pavilion, Santa Monica Place and Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza--said their customers are safe from pickpockets, but also declined to discuss specific numbers.

At Westside Pavilion, security patrol watch commander Mark Nicks said the high visibility of his civilian officers, and the occasional LAPD officer, scare away pickpockets.

The presence of a police substation, continuous video monitoring and special foot patrols by private guards and LAPD officers have kept pickpockets away from the Baldwin Hills mall, Security Director Glenn Clark said.

“If there is pickpocketing,” Clark said, “it isn’t being reported.”

Police, however, say pickpockets strike more than public-relations-conscious mall officials would like the public to believe.

“I would be remiss to say this mall has a particular problem or that one does,” said Detective Thomas Henton, who also works the LAPD’s pickpocket detail. “At every mall, business, amusement park--every place which naturally attracts people--you are going to have pickpocket activity. It’s just as simple as that.”

Thwarting Pickpockets

Here are some tips that police say can help shoppers avoid being victims of pickpockets:

* Watch for suspicious-looking people, especially those with a jacket draped over an arm or a newspaper in one hand.

* Keep your purse in front of you at all times, not behind you or at your side, and don’t advertise what it contains. Make sure the purse is closed and secured tightly, and that your wallet is on the bottom and hard to get at.

* Keep your wallet in a front pocket or inside jacket pocket, especially one that zips or buttons. Placing a wide rubber band around the wallet makes it harder for thieves to slide it out of your pocket without alerting you.

* Pay particularly close attention in elevators, escalators and anywhere else where there are crowds and people jostling each other. Keep a hand on your wallet if possible.

* Be especially leery when bumped or touched by someone, especially in a crowd, or if someone spills something on you and then they, or someone else, offers to wipe it off.

* Keep a close watch on people who “accidentally” drop coins or something else in cramped quarters, because they can filch a wallet on their way up, or an accomplice can steal it while you help them.