We have been to Athens before and always feel safe as far as crime. But now there are roves of professional pickpockets roaming the subways, bus stops, anywhere there that is crowded with tourists. Sat. morning we got on the crowded Metro and just as the doors were closing a group of young men and women burst through the door. They looked normal, not menacing. We got shoved into other people already on the Metro-also part of the gang. I was smashed up against a young woman who had said "come over here" as if she was being polite. I had on a sash purse, which wraps around your neck and is flat to your body. It has 6 zippers. She managed to find the zipper with the 90 Euros in it and took it and I never had a clue. I had my hand on the sash the entire time. These are pros. My husband had his wallet in a Velcro pocket in his cargo pants and they took the entire thing. We had used the Rick Steve's waist belt on our last trip, but misplaced them and did not have time to buy more before we left. We were shaken and feeling much more vulnerable than we ever had before when traveling, decided it was not going to ruin our trip, but it did take an entire day and a 1/2 to go to the police-they would not even take a report, so don't waste your time-get our credit cards and banks notified, etc.
Then later we were at a large hop on hop off drop, and a 3 people started a scene in the street. I knew immediately it was fake and they were trying to distract tourists. The moral of the story? Keep everything valuable in your hotel safe, anything you have on you they want to steal, put in a waist belt. By the way, these were not Greek people. I could tell from the girl's accent they were Eastern European.