In Barcelona, the Mossos d'Esquadra police have identified, and arrested, close to 300 thieves who are multiple recidivists - that is, they steal again and again. Almost exclusively they are men - only three are women - who have made theft their lifestyle in the capital of Catalonia. Specifically, the Catalan police, sometimes in collaboration with Barcelona's Guardia Urbana force, have arrested these 283 people a total of 2,270 times for 5,602 crimes, mainly thefts (in Catalan/Spanish, furts/hurtos which do not involve violence) and robberies (robatoris/robos, which do imply violence against people or the use of force against property). Arrests are up, but the absolute number of repeat offenders operating in the city is down. That could mean that there are fewer of them, but those that are active are more active. On the other hand, these statistics could be read another way: that the Mossos are responding to them faster due to police intelligence and are catching them more often, despite the fact that after being arrested, they appear before the judge and are quickly out again.
According to data released today by the Mossos d'Esquadra, to assess the Tremall Plan against multiple recidivists, the majority of thieves who commit crimes every day in the city of Barcelona are men, aged between 18 and 25, and most are of foreign nationality. According to the data, some of the thieves have settled in Barcelona and spend their nights - or the days, for those who steal at night - in squatter houses. But just as they are not typical foreigners, neither are they typical squatters.
The Catalan police refer to the typical accommodation of this group as ocupacions delinqüencials - "criminal occupations" - living in apartments that are not occupied by needy families but rather by people who have chosen theft as their modus vivendi, homes that also become warehouses for stolen property and distribution points for the "receivers", those who buy the stolen material. In this study which analyzed crime in the city of Barcelona, the researchers also detected that these people use public transport to go to the city to commit their crimes before commuting "home" again.
One thief was arrested 25 times in a year
Of these dozens of men who live from theft in Barcelona, there are five who stand out from the crowd as the most active and who, collectively, were arrested 117 times in 2022, and have a total of 178 crimes on their police records. The one with the most of all, whose nationality the Catalan police did not want to provide, has been arrested 25 times by the Mossos and has 52 convictions, all for crimes against property or involving injuries - resulting from robbery. The data also reveals that there are more and more thieves who are abandoning crimes such as theft and robbery with violence against people on the street, to commit robberies using force, that is to say, breaking and entering into commercial establishments or houses, in order to steal valuables.
One of the neighbourhoods that has recently raised the alarm is that around the Santa Caterina market in Ciutat Vella, where retailers are fed up with thefts. Almost every night thieves raid some store although they usually take very little, damaging roller blinds and windows. Ground zero for robberies remains the centre of the city, especially the Raval area, but the zone of most frequent problems also extends along the waterfront and into the districts of Sant Martí, Sants-Montjuïc and Nou Barris - above all, at nighttime.
Where do the thieves live? In criminal 'dens'
Most thieves who have moved into Barcelona sleep in squatted apartments. The Mossos have placed one of the focuses in their war against multiple recidivist thieves on these apartments, which are spaces where people with very active criminal profiles come together. In this case, during the past year, a total of 35 such 'dens' in central Barcelona have been dislodged, with judicial orders and actions by law and order forces. At the same time, the police say that there are still many that are active, on whom they keep a close watch and and take action, via patrols and operations.