But... how does anyone act that fast with only one hand? Surely someone would notice in that split second, especially with so many people around. Moreover, who would be so incompetent as to miss a hand clearly reaching for their pouches, and then not check immediately after the trick to verify it? Either way, there's a little bit of power-play involved for something like that to happen, for she wouldn't be able to get out fast enough for a nearby guard to stop her, and even with a distraction, people still have enough peripheral vision to catch things happening in the corners of their eyes.

Like, it's still to some degree one of the lesser forms of godmodding and thus excusable, especially since it's being done to an NPC, but it's also necessary to make sure we have a logical timeline of events for the player characters there.
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This event has been filed as a minor infraction, because the NPCs were controlled by a player, and not a GM, for the gains of a player's character. As such, the wallets are empty.