Margot Robbie Pickpocket Movie

If he turned crooked, he’d be the best in the business, but quick-fingered Apollo Robbins is an entertainer so good, that magicians mention his name in hushed tones

There aren’t many people who can get the best of the US Secret Service, especially when they’re guarding the President - but Apollo Robbins isn’t just anybody - he’s the world’s greatest pickpocket.

If he turned crooked, he’d be the best in the business, but quick-fingered Apollo, 40, is an entertainer, so good at his craft that fellow magicians mention his name in hushed tones.

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Psychologists, academics and the US military are all keen to find out the secrets that make Apollo one of the greatest sleight-of-hand experts on the planet.

Last year he was even made Professor of Pickpocketing at Yale as the Ivy League university set up a new department of defence research and training to ­investigate how pickpocketing and conman tactics can be used against terrorists.

And his fiendish ability to “hack” human brains – distracting our attention while he steals wallets, watches and cash – has made him the go-to expert for TV and movie executives.

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Back in 2001 his skills had landed him a role as a sideshow act at Caesar’s Palace casino in Las Vegas. Then former US President Jimmy Carter walked in and everything changed.

Apollo says: “My boss pulled me to one side and said, ‘President Carter is coming here and they don’t want you to steal from him because they don’t want it to get in the news.'

“Then he told me, 'But they didn’t say anything about the secret service and they’re gonna be guarding all the doors around the theatre.'

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“So I went up and I took their credentials, the itinerary of everywhere the President was going and when I got up to their boss, he said, ‘You’re NOT stealing anything from me. Especially the keys to the motorcade.’ Anyway I said, ‘Well, they’re right here’ and I handed them to him.

“Jimmy Carter saw all of this happening and he turned around to the secret service guys and he was teasing them saying, ‘Aren’t you guys supposed to be protecting me?’”

News of his escapade got around, and Apollo, who has a son and a wife of 10 years, was suddenly in huge demand. That’s when Tinseltown came calling… and how he ended up getting up close and personal with Margot Robbie, the beautiful blonde co-star of Will Smith’s new movie, Focus.

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The 24-year-old Aussie plays wannabe con-artist Jess who uses her wits, looks and shapely body to distract men while she grabs their valuables.

“I was trying to show her how she could exploit her looks to take advantage of men, ” he says. “In real life that happens a lot. I saw that in Las Vegas where a hot girl would suddenly come up to a guy and start talking to them, then steal their wallet out of their jacket pocket or even tight jeans.

“Margot is beautiful. But, surprisingly she doesn’t seem to recognise the way she looks. She just thinks of herself as just an everyday girl who grew up on a farm with her parents.

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“So I tried to show her how to use her looks. I said, ‘When this guy comes in what is he going to be looking at on you? Where is his attention?’ She had to learn they would be checking out her ass.

“I said, ‘The guys will be looking at this. So give them a little bit to look at’. She had never really exploited that before.”

When Apollo had to teach Will Smith how to steal for his role as super conman Nicky, he took him shoplifting at a grocery store in Las Vegas. The 46-year-old superstar, worth a cool £140 million, was understandably afraid he’d be recognised.

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“I told him not to give anybody the chance – just get in, do it, then get out, ” says Apollo. “I only told him steal a packet of gum but Will was nervous as hell.

He wasn’t the super-confident guy you might expect him to be. But I wanted him to feel stress. And it hit him hard how your heart-rate goes up and how the blood rushes around your system.

“He did it and he came out with a real sombre look on his face. But that’s how much he trusted me – and in the end we took what he’d stolen back.

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“My mind works like theirs and criminals can smell it when they’re around me – but I choose not to use it in a bad way. I just choose to do good things.”

Things could have turned out so ­differently because Apollo says he grew up around a really bad crowd. His father Larry was a part-time pastor in Texas who met his mother, Betty, after her two sons from a previous relationship were caught picking his pocket and he tried to show them the error of their ways.

He and Betty fell in love, got married and Apollo was duly born. But due to complications during the birth he had deformed limbs and could not walk without leg braces or use his hands properly throughout much of his childhood.

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“I was doing all these hand exercises, trying to move things like other kids, catch things like other kids and change my reflexes and I guess I just didn’t stop.

“That’s why if somebody says to me, ‘Can I learn this?’ I will say, ‘Probably, if you can get the psychology right.’ ”

“I wouldn’t be able to do the things I do if I hadn’t been around and seen the stuff my brothers did, ” says Apollo.

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Apollo says: “My brother handed me a baseball bat and told me to stand behind the door and if they got in the house to hit them over the head with it.

He then pulled a shotgun out, put these shells in it and when they came closer he fired in the front yard through the window just to let them know he was serious and they should get back in the car.

“Growing up watching my brothers firing a shotgun at somebody out of a window for a drug deal going bad is a different kind of danger level than any kind of card trick.”

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Apollo put his experience of petty crime to legal use as an entertainer in his late teens and by the age of 22 had moved to Las Vegas to make his living.

One night he had some silver coins stolen from his bag by a member of the audience at the casino theatre and he made his way through the 250-strong audience discreetly checking pockets until he found the culprit and demanded them back.

“He stands there and says, ‘Steal from me right now’, and I said: ‘Well, you’re expecting it, so it’s hard to do it.’

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“He’s expecting me to steal his wallet or something but while I was talking to him he had a ballpoint pen inside his shirt, so I stole that, took it apart and took out the refill and put he pen back together.

“Then I asked him to take his ring off and draw a circle around it and when he tried he just stopped, stared at me and threw the pen down and said, ‘F***. You!’ because he realised the centre of his pen as missing.

REVEALED: Cause of UK air traffic control meltdown that has left Brits stranded around the world and thousands more facing huge airport delaysPlanesFocus is a 2015 American crime comedy-drama film writt and directed by Gln Ficarra and John Requa, starring Will Smith and Margot Robbie. The plot follows a career con artist who takes an aspiring femme fatale under his wing.

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The film was released on February 27, 2015. It received mixed reviews from critics but was a success at the box office, grossing $158 million against its $50 million budget.

Seasoned con-man Nicky Spurgeon meets inexpericed grifter Jess Barrett, who tries to seduce and con him, with a fake jealous husband. Wh they fail, Nicky advises them never to lose focus wh faced with unexpected situations. He follows Jess, convincing her to have drinks. Nicky tells her how his father Bucky shot his grandfather in a stand-off, explaining the Toledo Panic Button tactic, in which you shoot your partner to show your loyalty.

Jess follows Nicky to New Orleans, successfully persuading him to take her under his wing, where she also meets Nicky's crew, including Farhad and Horst. Picking a few pockets as a test, Nicky and Jess develop a romantic relationship, upsetting Nicky, whose father taught him to never become emotionally involved with colleagues. At a fictional Super Bowl XVII, Nicky gets into a round of increasingly extravagant bets with gambler Liyuan Tse, evtually losing all of the money the crew has earned.

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To win it back, Nicky asks Tse to pick any player on or off the field and has Jess guess the number picked. Distraught, Jess scans the field, sees Farhad wearing jersey number 55, and realizes it is another con. They take Tse for millions. Nicky later explains how Tse had be programmed