According to the Vanguardia today pickpockets are leaving the previously lucrative Killing Fields of Lines 1 and 3 to hit the tourists as they wait for Metros on Line 5 especially at stations Sagrada Familia, Diagonal and Verdageur. One of Line 5's advantages as far as robbing is concerned is that the trains are nearly always full and people have to push up against one another to get in so it's difficult to feel those probing experienced hands searching for wallets, money and credit cards.
My recent experiences on lines 3 and 1 apparently are all too common. The modus operandi varies but basically is the same. Pick a victim. Surround him. Distract him. Pick his pocket. Get away from the area. Return later and start all over again. I was picked out near Drassaanes. As I exited a large man o9n the platform blocked my exit while another behind me got my wallet. I was distracted as I asked the man to move out of the way- which he did once they had got my wallet. Luckily I realised what had happened and chased the man who had been behind me on the Metro. He gave me back the wallet and walked off. I checked it and then thumped him hard as I was angry ( probably a stupid thing to do!)
Last week on Line 3 I was on a crowded escalator when a small woman pushed in front of me. When we got to the top she dropped some coffee beans on the floor and stopped to picj them up while another woman tried (in vain) to get my wallet. A few minutes later at the top of another esclator a man stopped in front of me. I glanced behind me and saw the coffee bean woman so I continued walking 'through' the crouching man knocking him over. People behind trampled on him too!
Apparently both these methods are very commonly used but of course tourists may not know this. The Metro staff (drivers) have even taken to using megaphones to warn people about the presence of groups that look suspicious at key platforms like Diagonal. A bit like huntsmen blowing the trumpet when they see fox!
Barcelona is trying to do something about it though.A new plain clothes force will be patrolling the Metro and its platforms this summer and will beactive
Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Friday, 17 December 2010
Wikileaks conspiracy theories
Not only do we live in dangerous times, but also we Barceloneses live in a dangerous place according Wikileaks. Thanks to Mr Leak himself, Julian Assange, we know all about the cables sent from the US Madrid Embassy to Washington saying why Barcelona would be be an ideal place to set up a multi-agency counter-terrorism and crime-fighting centre.
Some cynics might regard the setting up of such a place as stemming from a conspiracy theory cos I wonder how many of us - except perhaps sharp-eyed Americans - have seen the 60,000 dangerous male and single Pakistanis who, according to Wikileaks, move around BCN unimpeded. On a quick random count on a Metro carriage (jam-packed, Line 3) Pakistanis scored nil. Perhaps I was travelling in a different carriage to the Embassy staff. I did see a few walking up and down Las Ramblas and manning the souvenir shops but 60,000. Come on!
The reports state the Pakistanis and many other Muslims 'live on the margins of BCN society' (unsurprisingly since who can afford the bloody sky-high rents here!) and that they 'don't speak the language.' Well, most of the ones I've heard in shops put all us expats to shame with their fluency. Moreover they are all deemed 'resentful since they don't have places to worship in' - ie mosques. I can understand why Catalans might be resentful with Allah Wakbar bellowing out five times a day from a digital speaker near you, but aren't we all constantly deafened by the 24 hour monster cacophony created by traffic, drunks, car stereos, over-loud club music, ambulances, slamming doors and paraqueets so who'd notice an immam or three shouting from the rooftops.
But perhaps there's lots of hard evidence somewhere else to make this conspiracy theory a reality. Newspaper archives for example. Yes, well they certainly show dangerous terrorists are on the loose here - especially the right-wing La Vanguardia: in 2008, fourteen (out of the reputed 60,000 Pakistanis that's 0.02% by the way) with ties to jihad groups back home were arrested and sentenced for planning an attack on the BCN Metro. The suspects had stolen passports, some of which the Mumbai terrorists were using when captured last year. (Why did they carry passports?) One (yes, you heard correctly) one passport stolen in Barcelona was used by the head of the Unit which organised 9/11; last week seven more 'terrorists' (that's 0.01%) were arrested in the city again with ties to terror groups back home. Of course there would have been many more arrests but police admit that the Pakistani community is 'very difficult to penetrate'. Should the police should start learning Urdu with so many around? A few Salaam aleekums and handshakes wouldn't go amiss either.
Then it's the 'organised crime' aspect then which provides a stronger reason for basing a US Crime Centre in Barcelona? Well, yes, there are more tangible signs for the existence of that. South American and Eastern European drug cartels market are said to operate freely here; Mafia gangs launder their money in the region's businesses so it's no wonder the Barcelona region has 25% of Europe's 500 euro notes circulating around its shops and shops; Albanians, Chinese, and Romanians people-traffic through Gerona and El Prat bringing in sad women to work the streets and clubs. High-profile Italian mafioso seem to be on permanent vacation here with their life of luxury only occasionally disturbed by the odd arrest now and then. But does it have to be an American Crime Centre? Don't they have their own problems to deal with over there?
But all this theorising might seem to be irrelevant as the idea may not even get off the ground. The Americans forgot there's a political problem to consider. Although the Spanish Government in principle is favorable to the idea of helping out Los Yonquees, it's not so happy ceding powers of national security to Catalunia. Well what's new? Back to square one again with its petty inter-regional squabbles. What did the cables recommend to get round them I wonder?
Actually the whole affair smells a bit fishy, as if America is looking for a reason to set up some kind of holding centre here for terror suspects and is usingthe high level criminal in Europe thing as an excuse. We need to remember Cuba and Guantanamo Bay are not so politically correct these days. The whole thing smacks of a desperate need for control, control and more control. Whether PM, Mr Bean, will give in to pressure from the White House remains to be seen.
Are you as a resident like me un-affected in your day-to-day-life by terrorism and crime apaprt from the occasional pick-pocket or bag heist attempt? Or do you pound the pavements of Passeig de Gracia and Diagonal with your heart in your mouth fearful that every brown-skinned man (or female) you pass could be a suicide bomber? If you thought Barcelona is bad, mosey on down to Palau Virreina and take a look at the exhibition of crime scenes by a French photo journalist from Nice. Now there's a place place to set up this Super Crime Centre.
Some cynics might regard the setting up of such a place as stemming from a conspiracy theory cos I wonder how many of us - except perhaps sharp-eyed Americans - have seen the 60,000 dangerous male and single Pakistanis who, according to Wikileaks, move around BCN unimpeded. On a quick random count on a Metro carriage (jam-packed, Line 3) Pakistanis scored nil. Perhaps I was travelling in a different carriage to the Embassy staff. I did see a few walking up and down Las Ramblas and manning the souvenir shops but 60,000. Come on!
Because of these high numbers of Pakistanis and a big Arab population, the Embassy suggests that Catalan cities constitute 'a Mediterranean region of jihadist activity, with BCN as a hub', supposedly used as a crossroads for people and goods moving to and from Rabat,Tunis, Algiers and the south of France.
The reports state the Pakistanis and many other Muslims 'live on the margins of BCN society' (unsurprisingly since who can afford the bloody sky-high rents here!) and that they 'don't speak the language.' Well, most of the ones I've heard in shops put all us expats to shame with their fluency. Moreover they are all deemed 'resentful since they don't have places to worship in' - ie mosques. I can understand why Catalans might be resentful with Allah Wakbar bellowing out five times a day from a digital speaker near you, but aren't we all constantly deafened by the 24 hour monster cacophony created by traffic, drunks, car stereos, over-loud club music, ambulances, slamming doors and paraqueets so who'd notice an immam or three shouting from the rooftops.
But perhaps there's lots of hard evidence somewhere else to make this conspiracy theory a reality. Newspaper archives for example. Yes, well they certainly show dangerous terrorists are on the loose here - especially the right-wing La Vanguardia: in 2008, fourteen (out of the reputed 60,000 Pakistanis that's 0.02% by the way) with ties to jihad groups back home were arrested and sentenced for planning an attack on the BCN Metro. The suspects had stolen passports, some of which the Mumbai terrorists were using when captured last year. (Why did they carry passports?) One (yes, you heard correctly) one passport stolen in Barcelona was used by the head of the Unit which organised 9/11; last week seven more 'terrorists' (that's 0.01%) were arrested in the city again with ties to terror groups back home. Of course there would have been many more arrests but police admit that the Pakistani community is 'very difficult to penetrate'. Should the police should start learning Urdu with so many around? A few Salaam aleekums and handshakes wouldn't go amiss either.
Then it's the 'organised crime' aspect then which provides a stronger reason for basing a US Crime Centre in Barcelona? Well, yes, there are more tangible signs for the existence of that. South American and Eastern European drug cartels market are said to operate freely here; Mafia gangs launder their money in the region's businesses so it's no wonder the Barcelona region has 25% of Europe's 500 euro notes circulating around its shops and shops; Albanians, Chinese, and Romanians people-traffic through Gerona and El Prat bringing in sad women to work the streets and clubs. High-profile Italian mafioso seem to be on permanent vacation here with their life of luxury only occasionally disturbed by the odd arrest now and then. But does it have to be an American Crime Centre? Don't they have their own problems to deal with over there?
But all this theorising might seem to be irrelevant as the idea may not even get off the ground. The Americans forgot there's a political problem to consider. Although the Spanish Government in principle is favorable to the idea of helping out Los Yonquees, it's not so happy ceding powers of national security to Catalunia. Well what's new? Back to square one again with its petty inter-regional squabbles. What did the cables recommend to get round them I wonder?
Actually the whole affair smells a bit fishy, as if America is looking for a reason to set up some kind of holding centre here for terror suspects and is usingthe high level criminal in Europe thing as an excuse. We need to remember Cuba and Guantanamo Bay are not so politically correct these days. The whole thing smacks of a desperate need for control, control and more control. Whether PM, Mr Bean, will give in to pressure from the White House remains to be seen.
Are you as a resident like me un-affected in your day-to-day-life by terrorism and crime apaprt from the occasional pick-pocket or bag heist attempt? Or do you pound the pavements of Passeig de Gracia and Diagonal with your heart in your mouth fearful that every brown-skinned man (or female) you pass could be a suicide bomber? If you thought Barcelona is bad, mosey on down to Palau Virreina and take a look at the exhibition of crime scenes by a French photo journalist from Nice. Now there's a place place to set up this Super Crime Centre.
Monday, 22 November 2010
Saga Louts: UK pensioner crime
Only the Guardian newspaper could come up with such an outrageous pun - do they still have sit-down comedians to write all their headlines? The phrase 'Saga louts' recalls the 80's phenomenon of young gun Brits fuelled on gallons of high-strength lager loutishly wrecking property and people in Britain and abroad - Spain with places like Loret del Mar and Torremolinos were a prime casualities. Latterly young people in the UK seem more likely to wreck themselves at the weekend though they still manage to create no-go areas for the rest of us leaving stations, town centres and carparks awash with vomit. Luckily today's teenagers seem more concerned with how many times they can throw up in a night rather than how many fights they can pick.
But 'saga louts'? OK, saga rhymes with lager but there have to be other similarities? Well it seems there are. An increasing number of Saga members, the over 60's, are taking the law into their own hands. Financial crime, drug and weapon crime and sexual offences (must be all these purple pills available on the Internet) are on the up for pensioners, so much so that elderly prison wings are going to be the thing to go for in penal institutional architecture, fitted out with stairlifts and wheelchair ramps. Plus prison staff will also need to learn how to deal with prisoners who suffer from dementia problems and don't know why they are there or even just Why?. Will that sad infirmitythat become a legitimate and genuine defence in court? "My client doesn't remember a thing about the night of the 11th , mi lud."
The Guardian suggests the reasons for this significant increase in older-person crime could be because pensions aren't enough to live off in today's climate of increased VAT and fuel bills. The Internet makes scams easier to set up and courts are getting tougher on older criminals. It also points out that it's not only Britain where the phenomenon exist : the same has been happening in Holland, Japan, France and Israel. Increased customers on Saga Holidays and Cruises another reason then?
No figures exist as far as I know for penioner pugilists in Barcelona, though I did once see an irate abuela almost club a pink shirtless tourist to death with her brolly as he crossed the Ramblas with his mates. But things are clearly changing. Published crime figures show that a highly respecatable area of Barcelona like Sarria is now statistically regarded as a high crime area even though it's mainly populated by the over 70's. Gym chain, Dir, have classes every morning for the Evergreens in its upper Diagonal area premises. Maybe it should stop training them in Body Balance, Karate and Kick-boxing though. It's obviously putting ideas into their heads and over-toughening their aging bodies.
Soon young people will have to move downtown to safer places like Cuitat Vell and Trinitat where there will be fewer chances of being robbed and violated. Or run down by wild pensioners gunning their Porsches and Ferraris. Soon we'll also have 70 year olds whispering psst! as you walk up Via Augusta while pulling out plastic wrapped comforters from their shopping trolleys. A perfect cover. It's going to play hell with the city's demographics in a year or two. Its clubs and bars will be full of randy old greybeards fuelled on Viagra and Cialis leching after young women and swigging Hot Chocolate cocktails. What? They already are? OK forget that then. Certainly you can expect to see an increase of leather-jacketed Segway riders hanging out in L'Illa, sporting labels on their backs like "Turro Park Grannies" or "Les Corts Angels.
It's not going to be pleasant then for us good law-abiding types working our nuts off - I'd hate to be a Mosso in the next two or three years if Spain follows the current trend. But then maybe there's no need to worry yet as the country is always the last one to follow norms and trends. It will be the last to observe smoking bans in public places so why should it send its glamorous grannies to solicit on las Ramblas?
But 'saga louts'? OK, saga rhymes with lager but there have to be other similarities? Well it seems there are. An increasing number of Saga members, the over 60's, are taking the law into their own hands. Financial crime, drug and weapon crime and sexual offences (must be all these purple pills available on the Internet) are on the up for pensioners, so much so that elderly prison wings are going to be the thing to go for in penal institutional architecture, fitted out with stairlifts and wheelchair ramps. Plus prison staff will also need to learn how to deal with prisoners who suffer from dementia problems and don't know why they are there or even just Why?. Will that sad infirmitythat become a legitimate and genuine defence in court? "My client doesn't remember a thing about the night of the 11th , mi lud."
The Guardian suggests the reasons for this significant increase in older-person crime could be because pensions aren't enough to live off in today's climate of increased VAT and fuel bills. The Internet makes scams easier to set up and courts are getting tougher on older criminals. It also points out that it's not only Britain where the phenomenon exist : the same has been happening in Holland, Japan, France and Israel. Increased customers on Saga Holidays and Cruises another reason then?
No figures exist as far as I know for penioner pugilists in Barcelona, though I did once see an irate abuela almost club a pink shirtless tourist to death with her brolly as he crossed the Ramblas with his mates. But things are clearly changing. Published crime figures show that a highly respecatable area of Barcelona like Sarria is now statistically regarded as a high crime area even though it's mainly populated by the over 70's. Gym chain, Dir, have classes every morning for the Evergreens in its upper Diagonal area premises. Maybe it should stop training them in Body Balance, Karate and Kick-boxing though. It's obviously putting ideas into their heads and over-toughening their aging bodies.
Soon young people will have to move downtown to safer places like Cuitat Vell and Trinitat where there will be fewer chances of being robbed and violated. Or run down by wild pensioners gunning their Porsches and Ferraris. Soon we'll also have 70 year olds whispering psst! as you walk up Via Augusta while pulling out plastic wrapped comforters from their shopping trolleys. A perfect cover. It's going to play hell with the city's demographics in a year or two. Its clubs and bars will be full of randy old greybeards fuelled on Viagra and Cialis leching after young women and swigging Hot Chocolate cocktails. What? They already are? OK forget that then. Certainly you can expect to see an increase of leather-jacketed Segway riders hanging out in L'Illa, sporting labels on their backs like "Turro Park Grannies" or "Les Corts Angels.
It's not going to be pleasant then for us good law-abiding types working our nuts off - I'd hate to be a Mosso in the next two or three years if Spain follows the current trend. But then maybe there's no need to worry yet as the country is always the last one to follow norms and trends. It will be the last to observe smoking bans in public places so why should it send its glamorous grannies to solicit on las Ramblas?
Monday, 18 October 2010
Not another Barcelona blog!
Right now there's another blogette setting off in life, a tadpole recently hatched and swimming in a murky pond with all the other blogettes waving their flags for attention. Much more importantly the weather's warm. It's not raining and there's an intensely blue sky outside on my terrace. Which is one of the main reasons why a lot of people like me come from chilly damp northern Europe to live in Spain. Actually in my case that's not strictly true as I came from the other end of the thermometer scale, from 20 years in the 50º Celsius fry-eggs-on-your-car-bonnet Middle East summer temperatures in order to escape excessive amounts of sun. Barcelona, I considered, would be a compromise between the London in my own country and Dubai.
I arrived eight years ago and wasn't disappointed. I found Barcelona to be a city with lots of positives and only a few negatives. In the Middle East I suffered achingly from CDS, culture-deficit syndrome. Now I gazed open-mouthed at the splendour of Barcelona's awesome modernist and contemporary architecture, its elegant shops, its museums and galleries, its wide boulevards where people actually walked - you only drove in the Middle East! Its exciting night life with thousands of bars, clubs and restaurants all had me transfixed like a wild boar in car headlights. And within a couple of hours from the city I could be skiing or scuba-diving . It was glaringly apparent why the city ranked high in the most visited cities in Europe list. Perfect you might think.
And you'd be right. It was. But you have to remember visitors and residents are never a homogenous mass. A society is composed of many strata. Criminals like the good life too, and a city like Barcelona offers rich pickings to its criminal high-life. Lots of money can be made out of prostitution, drugs, money-laundering, robberies, scams - just to name just a few areas of lucrative 'free enterprise' on offer. The city has good zones but also bad zones where after midnight the police patrol in threes. In the eight years I've been here I've seen several examples of violence in the streets and had my wallet stolen twice. Mmm perhaps not so perfect!
I've set this blog up - after abhorting an earlier one (http://spanishflyonthwall.blog.com/ ) I'd had for two years - to write about the city from the point of view of outsider/resident so if you want objective description, this blog is not for you nor for the tourist who is just visiting 'the sights' for a few days. I'll be using newspapers as my main source and adding my comments to their new. Hopefully the views expressed will be interesting enough to get you to comment.
So please feel free to agree - or just as important - disagree. I look forward to your comments. Let me know too if you are blogging about Barcelona .
I arrived eight years ago and wasn't disappointed. I found Barcelona to be a city with lots of positives and only a few negatives. In the Middle East I suffered achingly from CDS, culture-deficit syndrome. Now I gazed open-mouthed at the splendour of Barcelona's awesome modernist and contemporary architecture, its elegant shops, its museums and galleries, its wide boulevards where people actually walked - you only drove in the Middle East! Its exciting night life with thousands of bars, clubs and restaurants all had me transfixed like a wild boar in car headlights. And within a couple of hours from the city I could be skiing or scuba-diving . It was glaringly apparent why the city ranked high in the most visited cities in Europe list. Perfect you might think.
And you'd be right. It was. But you have to remember visitors and residents are never a homogenous mass. A society is composed of many strata. Criminals like the good life too, and a city like Barcelona offers rich pickings to its criminal high-life. Lots of money can be made out of prostitution, drugs, money-laundering, robberies, scams - just to name just a few areas of lucrative 'free enterprise' on offer. The city has good zones but also bad zones where after midnight the police patrol in threes. In the eight years I've been here I've seen several examples of violence in the streets and had my wallet stolen twice. Mmm perhaps not so perfect!
I've set this blog up - after abhorting an earlier one (http://spanishflyonthwall.blog.com/ ) I'd had for two years - to write about the city from the point of view of outsider/resident so if you want objective description, this blog is not for you nor for the tourist who is just visiting 'the sights' for a few days. I'll be using newspapers as my main source and adding my comments to their new. Hopefully the views expressed will be interesting enough to get you to comment.
So please feel free to agree - or just as important - disagree. I look forward to your comments. Let me know too if you are blogging about Barcelona .
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