ROFL if you see someone looking suspicious then cast a gate, run lol. That is all I am at liberty to say. It wasn't me, but I know who it was and how they did it.
Welcome to UO Renaissance Lumbo. One thing to keep in mind is if you use a macro with the word guards in it, if it is "vendor buy bank guards" and you are near the bank. The guards would never come based on your speech as the "bank" keyword would be picked up and acted upon by a banker. As guards was last in your speech string it would be ignored once a banker successfully acted on your speech. So making sure your speech macro is "guards vendor buy bank" which is the order you would want those acted upon. Additionally successfully stealing an item will always result in the thief being flagged as a criminal. However a thief can avoid being noticed by the guards and other NPC's when stealing the item thus allowing them to avoid being attacked by the guards. This is a chance based on NPC's that can see the player, and a chance based on their skill. So it is possible for a thief to steal something from you and not be a target for guard action. They can still clearly be attacked by a player however. Stealing is a classic trade here and if you idle anywhere with anything of value there is a chance someone will try to steal it. So always prepare accordingly and try some tricks like trapped containers, locked containers, dress/undress agents that place weapons inside hidden containers the thief can't find etc. Like most things on UO Renaissance a bit of preparation goes a long way.
You can reach all the tiles you want but I don't think it will effect npcs. Not 100% sure. You can whisper too to reach fewer tiles away. Good if you want to "all kill" someone without them seeing your commands.