InvestigationThey name their children Dior or Al Capone and love designer clothes and luxury cars. To maintain their lavish lifestyle, the men of the Hamidovic clan – a Romani family of Bosnian origin – have maintained a reign of fear over an army of young female pickpockets on Paris public transportation. One branch of the network is on trial in Paris from September 15 to 23.

Roberto Junior Hamidovic has been sleeping behind bars for the past two years. He let his hair grow long and wears it carefully tied back, still attentive to his looks even in prison, where he brought his Gucci tracksuit. In January 2026, the 22-year-old underwent a psychiatric evaluation, a standard procedure ahead of his trial, which started on September 15. He is appearing before a Paris criminal court on charges of "organized group theft," "money laundering," "participation in a criminal association" and "human trafficking."

Six other members of his family – including his parents, one of his brothers and a cousin – will join him in the dock. They, too, are accused of running a network of Bosnian Roma women who worked as pickpockets. With his baby face and thin mustache, Roberto Junior, known as "Gony," allegedly acted as a kind of supervisor, overseeing the pickpockets' "work" on behalf of his father, Roberto, the clan's alleged leader.

More than just a family name, Hamidovic refers to a pickpocketing ring whose factions form and dissolve with marriages between members, arrests, turf wars and the "purchase" of young female thieves for a few thousand euros. These girls have become a familiar presence on the Paris métro, where they are a source of terror for tourists, targeted for their supposedly cash-filled wallets and their reluctance to report crimes.

In his 1983 documentary Faits divers (News Items), which chronicles daily life at a Paris police station, Raymond Depardon filmed the mocking faces of these children who knew they were protected by their status as minors. Both perpetrators and victims, these girls, aged between 10 and 18, are hostages of a patriarchal network that keeps them on the fringes of society and exploits their labor. Meanwhile, the men who run the system – idle, violent and flashy – throw around €500 bills in nightclubs, casinos and luxury boutiques, with a pistol tucked into their Louis Vuitton belts.