Bastard Thieves Of Barcelona
After a successful week at the CEPIC conference we treated ourselves to a week’s holiday with a couple of friends in rural Catalonia. The sun shone, it was warm, we were staying in a gorgeous place, everything was tickety-boo. But that was out in the country.
Before we went, everyone we spoke to warned us of the street crime in Barcelona. I mean everyone. We’ve been to Barcelona four or five times in the past, and it is an enchanting city — astounding architecture, great food, wonderful wine — and we had never had any trouble.
This time it was different. Just tiny little things to begin with: we were coming back from a CEPIC dinner at 00:15 and had to walk for 100 metres down the Ramblas, notorious for petty crime. A man stepped out in front of us waving a banknote, asking for change. Even I’m not dumb enough to fall for that one after midnight so I just strode on. He jabbed me in the shoulder three or four times to get my attention but frankly I had better things to do than to discuss financial matters with a threatening stranger in the night.
Then one afternoon I found myself nursing a Marguerita outside a bar in the Barri Gotic. A less than reputable-looking man dropped into the seat next to me, reached out and rather bizarrely began shaking my leg. “NO TOCAR!” I bellowed, much to the shock of the five young English girls at the next table. He scuttled off.
The third intrusion came as we were walking down the steps into the Metro. Hot, wet and sweet. Someone had thrown a cup of hot chocolate over us, over my beautiful cream linen suit jacket. The man coming down the steps behind us was horrified. Luckily he had a bottle of water in his hand and offered to help us clean off the mess. But our friends James & Jill had already warned us of that little trick, and we got away from our light-fingered Samaritan as quickly as possible.
Safely on to the airport train at Barcelona-Sants, and we half-breathed a sigh of relief. We inspected the chocolate stains all over my lovely jacket, decided it was best to let them dry out before trying to brush it down. I put it on the overhead rack. We checked it periodically. At Bellvitge station, the last but one before the Aeroport, we realised we would not be able to take bottles of Coke through security, so we transferred them from our suitcases to my rucksack so we could finish them off in the departure lounge. As we were doing this, the train stopped at El Prat de Lobregat, Yvonne looked up and spotted the jacket had gone. I rushed to the door but couldn’t see anyone making off with it.
The jacket was part of the suit I wore at my wedding, hand-made to measure in Thailand for me out of cream linen. It was beautiful, comfortable and warm — too warm for Barcelona, which is why it was on the overhead rack. The bastards.
At the airport I went in search of the police. I pressed an Information button, but the woman at the other end said they only gave information to disabled people. Then I asked at a check-in desk. Three people stared at me blankly. ‘Police? Polizia? Polis? Polizei? Gendarmes? Heddlu?’
‘Ah!’ recognition dawned in their eyes. ‘Mossas!’ Silly me.
I found the Mossas de Squadra, and within ten minutes I was relating my incident. He was as sympathetic as a policeman is allowed to be, and painfully typed out his one-fingered report. Why aren’t the police taught how to type? It would save thousands of man-hours. As he handed me his report, he waved his finger at me sternly. ‘Remember it could never have been a Spaniard who did this thing to you! It must have been a Moroccan. Or a Romanian.’ I wonder if the British police are permitted to speculate in such a way.
What a nasty finale to a terrific two weeks. The CEPIC Conference was fascinating, exciting, useful, invigorating and I hope it will turn out to be profitable. The subsequent holiday had been full of good wine, good company, good food and good weather. It was like breaking eggs into a bowl, only to find the last one is rotten. Everything was spoilt.
At least I’ve been saved a dry-cleaning bill.
June 24th, 2013 at 15:21
[…] This year it was held in Barcelona, so Yvonne Seeley and I felt we really ought to make an effort and go. It was our first CEPIC. I mean, what’s not to like about Barcelona? Well, I’ll tell you exactly what’s not to like, but I’ll put it in my personal blog. […]
June 24th, 2013 at 20:07
Dear Gwyn
I am sorry to hear that your visit to Barcelona was spoilt by crime, and sorrier still to hear that Las Ramblas is a crime hotspot. (It was one of my favourite parts of the city in bygone years.)
If it’s any consolation, I think that crime has become worse in Spain due to the economic situation. Whilst in Mallorca this tear, my wife had her purse stolen from her handbag in a shop in Palma. The juvenile security boy told me (I speak Spanish) that the video recordings could only be viewed by la policia, so off we set for the impressively titled Commisariat de Policia Nacional. We found ourselves in a dark hole in a corner of the building, where, it seems, people report for daily bail. Eventually, we reprted the crime on a telephone, apparently connected to an office on the mainland, since they did not know where Palma was!
Finally a young policewoman summoned us to a desk, handed my wife a written transcript of her telephone conversation and asked her to sign it, gave us a crime number for our insurers, and intimated that the culprit would not be apprehended. The police in Spain just seem to pass the buck between the Policia Nacional, the Policia Local, And the Guardia Civil.
When you consider all the reports of EU citizens having money demanded for medical attention, despite offering an E111 card, Spain seems like a good place to avoid until the Spanish authorities get their act together.
Here’s hoping you have a great time in Berlin next year!
June 24th, 2013 at 20:26
Hey Gwynn,
That is just not right, you have my sincere sympathies, thanks for the heads up Barca’ was not like that last time I visited either, and I was looking forward to a visit in the very near future, I think you just changed my mind… I so wanted to see how the la Sagrada Família is doing.
Hopefully the next conference will be in San Sebanstian, you won’t have problems like that there.
June 24th, 2013 at 22:36
My sympathies, – what a lousy thing to have to through.
And I guess also, thank you for the warning.
June 25th, 2013 at 16:57
Friends of mine have had similar experiences there in recent years. I imagine there is so much of it the police have given up. Doubt I shall be there visiting any time soon.
June 26th, 2013 at 12:15
Commiserations. In March my sister had a gold chain ripped from her neck in the Ramblas and experienced a pretty hopeless police response. She was badly affected, poor thing. Rightly or wrongly a huge influx of Romanians has been associated with rising street crime in Barcelona. Best Chris
June 29th, 2013 at 12:11
Hi all,
I must say that I´m personally sorry for all these incidents that some of you suffered while in Barcelona or others places in Spain.
Unfortunately this trend has always been more of less the same for years now with peaks and valleys and peaks tending to increase in summer, as the CEO of age fotostock that has been based in Barcelona since Franco´s time, I have been warning our visitors, even before arriving, of being extremely aware of their belongings, careful with excessive proximity of unknown people that may try to help you when in trouble created by one of his/her colleagues.
I have to admit also that, going with a few of our visitors to the “Mossos” (police in Catalan) and even driving them to Consulates to get news Passports it has happened to me a number of times.
I´m also sorry because when organizing the Congress we, the CEPIC organizers, tried to warn as much about these possibilities but unfortunately we didn´t do a good job warning more as it should have been needed.
We all have horror stories to tell, so here it goes mine. I was robbed a few years ago the money that I had in my pocket in Times Square, NYC, quickly but not exempt of certain brutality I would say, at noon, one day that I had on of these headaches… and could not run after the well organized group that took the money and run away. I went to a policeman that was vigilant two blocks down the square and reported what had happened and when questioned on how much I was stolen and I said ” a few hundred” he steered at me and asked “why did you handle so much money in your pocket…, do you want to report…?,” I walked away.
Due that I have an office in NYC, I have to go every 3-4 months, and I have been going to NYC since 1979, now I carry only $20 and CC with $500 limit, no passport, no ID cards, but the address of hotel and my office.
As the President of CEPIC now I´m really sorry for these stories about Barcelona and I hope you accept my deeply apologies in two ways as a person that was born in Barcelona and see this happening with little solution given by local authorities and as the organizer of an event that should not have been so bitter for I hope very small number of participants.
I hope Berlin will not bring any of these stories. I´ll see you there.
June 30th, 2013 at 08:48
I’m honoured that Alfonso has taken the time and trouble to respond to my petulant blog, written in fury on the plane home.
For those who don’t know, Alfonso is the President of CEPIC, the conference we were attending, and a native of Barcelona. I shared his misgivings about NYC for several years until 1982 when an article appeared in The Atlantic titled ‘Broken Windows’. It advocated a different approach to policing. Barcelona is already clean and well-ordered so the approach may not be directly applicable, but it has had a dramatic effect in reducing casual crime in New York.
These petty criminals are clearly gangs working a well-practiced routine. I have to admit our Good Samaritan with his bottle of water appeared more North African than Catalan.
We had plenty of advance warnings, Alfonso, and we were on our guard. They were just too clever for us. At no time did I feel threatened or frightened in Barcelona. It was just irritating, the little snipings. It’s never happened to me in Frankfurt, a city I visit annually, and it hasn’t happened to me in London since I was a teenager.
I think it’s a stage Barcelona is going through, and the Mossas will eventually learn how to police it and dissuade the perpetrators. I first visited Barcelona in 1966 and remember laughing at the bell-bottom trousers the kids were wearing. Within a year we were wearing them in Chelsea.
I’ll be back. It’s a great city. It’s just a shame I’m not a soccer fan.
July 2nd, 2013 at 11:56
Just to clarify my incident in NYC, to say that it happened in 2003.
July 29th, 2013 at 11:30
A month later, I heard from my insurance company. They paid me £300 for the theft of my £600 jacket. In the pocket of the jacket was my little point ‘n’ shoot Samsung which of course was also stolen. In my agitation I had forgotten to mention this to the police, so it didn’t go down in the report. I didn’t notice it had gone till we got back home.
So the insurance company has refused to pay up for it. It was only worth £140 or so, but it had the snaps of the nicer bits of the holiday.
Never mind. The insurance company has now told me their procedure — we won’t pay you unless you report the theft to the police in detail, and the maximum payout per item is £300 — so next time I’m going to be carrying the Crown Jewels with me, broken down into many, many little items each worth exactly £299.99.