if you ever meet the thief here is what you do:
run at them while staring forward
pull out a longsword
yell: "STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM, YOU VIOLATED THE LAW"
then somehow confiscate everything he has ever stolen, even things noone knew he stole

I'd like to invoke Castle Doctrine where I bring in a novelist to do the detective work for me.

I used to do this when people robbed me, but then I got an arrow in the knee.

another update:

The police have come and collected the footage and the bag for forensic testing, so I should get it back in 2 weeks....

I did have to explain the white powder covering the base of the bag.

So now I just have to make sure the Police don't lose it.

And hopefully it can catch the guy.

Sorry to hear you've got robbed. If someone stole my kindle i would be pretty pissed off

White powder? Which is valuable enough to get a bag stolen? What are you _doing_ in that full-fledged chemical lab you have access to? ;)

That reminds me of a RPG-Con I was at a few years ago. It was next to the city park and deep at night we heard a cry for help from the park. So we went to see if we could help. The quickest one of us called back "Hey, a bunch of skinheads are harassing someone" loud enough that everyone on the con heard. ... and in the next moment about 150 people in armor, armed with swords and whatever, came running.

I've never seen Skinheads run so fast! Unfortunately they had a head start, because they had heard the call as well. So we didn't catch them. But at least we had saved the homeless guy who had called for help and we have given the bad guys quite a scare.

Moral: if you want to harass someone, don't do it next to a large group of people whose hobby it is to play heroes. :-)

I have had a similar experience at Santacon in London (2008?) where guy nabbed a woman's bag stolen and was chased down an alley by about 50 guys dressed as Santa, all to the cry of "SANTAS!" and she got her bag back....

Happy times.