ARE YOU THE TIMES SQUARE BANDIT?

Within one hour of having parked my car this morning and walked to Starbucks to start working (I am a freelancer), plugging in my laptop and mobile phone and starting to work, about seven different people (or groups of people) had already asked me if I am the "Times Square Bandit, from Jacaranda". In each case, I immediately replied, "No I am not, but good luck finding her or him" or something to that effect. 

I recently started using the Pomodoro method to optimize my work time as I translate mostly legal and financial texts from German or Dutch to English. All it means as that you force yourself to take regular breaks by means of a timer. Pomodoro I think means tomato in Spanish or something and some people have an actual plastic tomato timer next to their laptop or whatever they use to work. So during the break period it is OK if people ask you if you are the Times Square Bandit but while you are working it is kind of annoying. Anyway...

About twenty seconds after the first encounter I already realized that this is a game initiated by a local radio station. Whoever finds the Times Square Bandit in this mall called "Times Square" is gonna get around $400 prize money from a local radio station called Jacaranda FM. It is not the real Times Square by the way, it is just a little shopping centre or mall in Pretoria, South Africa. 

So imagine literally hundreds (OK not hundreds but definitely more than about 80) of people around here with their phone in their one hand and looking around anxiously. Some of them are asking everyone if they are the Times Square Bandit. Others maybe did not realize before they came what the implications would be of such uncomfortable and awkward, absurd encounters with their fellow human beings. These guys struggle to get over the fear of approaching random people and asking them if they are the TSB, and so just kind of walk around looking for someone who resembles a Times Square Bandit, and then hope they can summon up enough will power to ask them if they are the Times Square Bandit.

It got me to thinking about what a real Times Square Bandit might look like...and then I realized what if I am the Times Square Bandit but I just don't know it? Will the real one know that he/she is the Times Square Bandit? Could I find out if I am the Times Square Bandit by process of elimination, in other words by asking everyone else if they are the times square bandit? Is the real Times Square Bandit even here? Are you the Times Square Bandit?