Foto: David Poblador i Garcia
As reported in a recent La Vanguardia article, six robbers were arrested at a recent FC Barcelona celebration after their victory against Real Madrid. See the article here.
There are few details, but it illustrates that the scourge of petty robbery no longer only affect tourists and foreigners in this city. Celebrating fans of Barcelona’s most popular football team are now considered fair game.
For background, Canaletes is very close to the top of Las Ramblas and is the central gathering point for Barcelona fans after major Barcelona victories, not least against Real Madrid.
We note with interest one commenter “below-the-line” on the article commented: “When we saw the first images on TV that night from Canaletes, we saw at least 8 or 10 (local thieves).”
We’ve translated the article for you, as follows:
“The criminals stole from fans who were celebrating the victory of their team at the Canaletes fountain on the Ramblas.
The Guardia Urbana of Barcelona has arrested six persons who allegedly took advantage of Barcelona’s victory yesterday against Real Madrid, stealing with violence from fans who were celebrating the victory of their team at the fountain of Canaletes in the Ramblas. Municipal sources have reported that the arrests occurred at 00:30 hours in the morning, when the alleged thieves took advantage of the party atmosphere that existed in the Ramblas to commit theft.
About 700 people gathered in this central point of the Catalan capital to celebrate the victory of Barcelona, at a party, which apart from these arrests, ran without incident. Both roads on either side of Las Ramblas were closed for about an hour and a half, to ensure the safety of fans.
The peak period for the gathering of fans was between 00:15 and 1:45 hours. The special operation group of law enforcement and emergency medical services (Guardia Urbana, Autonomous Police and Emergency Medical System) were activated at midnight.”
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And we all know they were released at 01.00 again after having a laugh at the station and collected their pink paper.. :(
Pickpockets were very active on New Year’s Eve, acting in groups of 4-5 people, looking for tourists going to party or drunk individuals. Just taking the transfer from Red to Yellow line in Urquinaona I met 2 of these gangs, one having ‘technical problems’ with a ‘customer’ that confronted them on the red line platform, and the other stalking like vultures a couple of beatiful (and very unaware) girls in the yellow line platform.
It is just a shame the way that they act with total umpunity in the subway. We should gather a group of about 20 people (at least) to go down there and confront (without violence) these jerks once in a while. Maybe I’ve been watching too many movies. Maybe not…
New Years eve is always awful. They line up in small groups on Portaferrisa & wait to pick off drunken revellers & anyone unaware….it’s just a f**kin plague here!