Police said they were able to identify the culprit after reviewing video taken by a team from Spain’s state broadcaster TVE, who inadvertently recorded the theft while filming an interview with a tourist. As the tourist explains to the camera why he loves Barcelona for its “beautiful beach and clear, cold water”, the thief is seen grabbing an unattended bag from the sand and peeling it off, seemingly oblivious to the presence of the TV crew. Almost immediately, in the same sequence, the owner of the missing bag enters the shot, realizes that his bag has disappeared and begins to desperately search for it. Gàrdia Urbana later announced that they had managed to return some of the stolen possessions to their owner and acknowledged the happy accident of the crime being shown on live television.
Barcelona has become a hotspot for street crime
“Thanks to a video posted […] on social media and the victim’s complaint, today we identified and charged the perpetrator of a theft on Sant Miquel beach,” Barcelona’s Guardia Urbana police said on Sunday. Barcelona has gained a reputation as a hotspot for street crime in recent decades. According to police figures, 34,000 thefts were reported in Barcelona from January to the end of May, about 225 a day. During the same period, the city also recorded an average of 27 incidents of violent theft, such as theft, and both figures are very good in the past two years, but according to 2019, before the pandemic and a sharp drop in the number of tourists . Police said they had made just over 900 arrests in connection with thefts in Barcelona in the first five months of the year. One of the main focuses of street crime in Barcelona this year has been watch theft, prompting Catalonia’s regional police to set up a special unit in an attempt to control gangs of so-called “relojeros”.
