The daughter of an American tourist who was seen grabbing the ponytail of a young pickpocket in Italy for 50 minutes has revealed the clever way her mother tracked down the thief.
Footage of the incident, which took place on Thursday in the Santa Maria del Giglio area of Venice, shows a furious Christina Cadieu Greene gripping the 14-year-old’s hair after spotting the teen sneaking her purse, which contained her money and passport, into her bag.
Viewers were left stunned and impressed at Greene’s reaction, but now her daughter has taken to TikTok to explain what happened behind the scenes in the viral video, and how her mother retrieved her belongings.
According to Karis McElroy, her mother and stepfather had been passing through Venice before setting off on a cruise across the Mediterranean Sea.
The daughter explained that three crowds of people had surrounded her mother while she was attempting to make her way to the Airbnb.
But once she had arrived, she noticed her bag had been left unzipped and her water bottle and purse – which contained her passport, credit cards, cash and a pair of AirPod Bluetooth headphones – were missing.
She then explained her mother’s quick thinking which led her to be able to track down the young thief, even among the throngs of people.
‘She was frantic trying to get this back. Her and my stepdad immediately started tracking her purse through her AirPods on Find My Friends and they were able to track it down back to those three girls because my mom already knew, like, these people must have been it,’ she said.
Christina Cadieu Greene had been passing through Venice before setting off on a cruise across the Mediterranean Sea when she was pickpocketed
Footage of the incident, which took place on Thursday in the Santa Maria del Giglio area of Venice, shows a furious Christina Cadieu Greene gripping the 14-year-old’s hair after spotting the teen sneaking her purse, which contained her money and passport, into her bag
Once Greene had located the three teenage girls, she grabbed one of them by the ponytail. The second girl stayed at the scene while the third girl ran off with McElroy’s mom’s purse, the daughter said
In a message from Greene shared in a screenshot on McElroy’s post, the mother admitted: ‘Something just came over me and I was so angry, and I went after them and grabbed the youngest of the three by the ponytail and wrapped my hand around the ponytail and would not let go’
Once Greene had located the three teenage girls, she grabbed one of them by the ponytail. The second girl stayed at the scene while the third girl ran off with McElroy’s mom’s purse, the daughter said.
But Greene remained determined to retrieve her belongings and in footage of the incident, the young girl can be seen struggling and screaming at the angry tourist, but she holds on tight telling her: ‘You stole my purse with my passport in it.
‘You are not getting away. I’m not stopping, kid. You are not getting away. I have eight kids, you don’t get to me.’
McElroy said her stepfather was tasked with helping retrieve her mother’s stolen goods while she waited for cops to arrive.
In a message from Greene shared in a screenshot on McElroy’s post, the mother admitted: ‘Something just came over me and I was so angry, and I went after them and grabbed the youngest of the three by the ponytail and wrapped my hand around the ponytail and would not let go.
‘One girl stayed [and] another one ran off. I ended up holding her by her ponytail with it wrapped around my hand for 50 minutes. She would be screaming at me, cussing at me, and I would scream back and tug harder on her hair.
‘I would pull her down and I would pull her up with her hair.’
She explained that there were huge crowds forming around her filming the scenes while cheering her on ‘because pickpockets are so bad in this area’.
‘The man who runs the Airbnb was wonderful. He came out and called the police, but [it] still took a long time for the police to get there. When the police got there, I released the girl and the [other] one with her went crazy.
‘They were insane. They started kicking and fighting with police to get away’.
But the ordeal did not end there. Greene had been standing behind the policeman upon their arrival, when the second girl who had not been held by the mother took her cloth bag, wrapped it around her wrist and hit her with it.
‘So it slung over the policeman’s shoulder and him me on the head and face. I later realised she had my metal water bottle in her bag,’ a message from Greene read.
‘I was bleeding pretty bad. I had a gash on my head and it was running down my face.
‘It was so much that my bra was soaked with blood, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from and the people around were so, so kind, they were trying to help me, they were trying to clean me up, so many people were just so very nice at the same time.
‘The girls were just fighting with the police. It was amazing to see those two little girls fighting so crazy with the police.
The two young suspects, who were both minors, were charged with theft before being released on bail
‘I ended up getting glued back together on my head and they put a Steri-Strip over it. I have a bruise on my face and a … skin rash near my nose, which is about the same blunt as that whole bottle.
‘That’s why I knew it had to be the bottle that hit me cause I was only hit once and the bottle was long enough to do that.’
According to the daughter, the third suspect had hopped on a train and left the mom’s stolen purse at a US liaison office inside an airport.
In another message sent by Greene and showed in a screenshot in McElroy’s post, she wrote: ‘My neighbor was calling me and said the police are at our house trying to find me because my passport had been turned in.
‘Turns out the thieves had gone straight to the airport with my purse, walked in and turned it in into a liaison office and said they did not want to be identified.
‘The only thing missing from my purse were my AirPods and about $200 in cash.
The two young suspects, who were both minors, were charged with theft before being released on bail.
The duo were reportedly spotted back on the streets among swathes of tourists just two days later, on Saturday, according to local reports.
