Waiting for a colleague on a late afternoon in Brussels recently, I got a text message that she was at a police station reporting a robbery and assault case. Later, she called to tell me in detail what had happened: She had left her apartment building in the Schumann area, near the European Union headquarters, just before dusk to take a bus to meet me. But before she could do so, a man wielding a knife forced her to part with her handbag, which among other things contained her wallet, voice recorder and camera, and ran away with it.

Too shocked at first to react, she got her wits back on seeing a cab. Getting into the vehicle, she asked the cabbie for help and got it. The cabbie not only followed the robber, but also alerted police and other cabbies about the crime and the description of the perpetrator.

My colleague said that just like in the movies, more than 10 taxis and a couple of police cars zoomed in on the robber, who, out of fear, threw her handbag on the road and fled.

Two months before the Brussels incident, after attending a meeting in Paris, several colleagues were on their way to a restaurant one night when a pickpocket tried to steal something from a colleague's handbag. Being aware of the dangers lurking in Paris streets, my colleague stunned the pickpocket by catching him red-handed. Shocked, the pickpocket fled.

A third Chinese woman, who works for a law firm in Brussels, became the target of another pickpocket while travelling by bus. Realizing that she had being robbed of her billfold which also contained her passport, which she needed to go on a business trip to China the next week, she decided to act tough.

She asked the bus driver in English and French both to not open the doors because she suspected the pickpocket was still on the bus, and requested him/her to return her belongings, especially her passport, or else she would call the police. After a moment's silence, someone shouted that her billfold was lying on the floor.