Local Article

"An organized gang of twelve jewel thieves have been arrested in a police operation in Barcelona"

This article from the BarcelonaReporter.com talks about exactly what the title implies. The National Police foreces arrested twelve men who were of South American origin today in Barcelona city. The men were in an organization that specialized in robbing jewelry stores. They would break into the stores forcefully and make the employees open their safes by restraining them and acting violently. The gang of robbers moved to Barcelona pretending to be tourists and stayed in the Catalan capital for three or four months. During those months they would carefully plan each attack on different jewelry stores. Just one of the robberies alone they stole jewelry and cash worth over one hundred thousand Euros and they threatened the employees there with knives. They are not only charged with many robberies, but they are charged with assault on private business people, seizing revenue and payrools, and thefts from customers of banks, using the method "cogotazo" where a member of the group watches their targets within a bank and once outside the other members of the group violently assult them. The men were operating from their home in Sant Boi de Llobregat and a room they rented in Plaza de Espana. The room in Plaza de Espanya was their meeting point. When they were caught today to be arrested they were carrying knives and they resisted the arrest very violently. This article caught my attention because it is very similar to what takes place in the United States. Specifically, my dad is a jeweler who has a store in Manhattan in the diamond district. He comes home and often tells about robberies where people get away with a great deal of cash and jewels. The only difference between Barcelona and New York is that usually in New York these robberies take place when nobody is around because it seems robbers do not want to deal with confrontation. Furthermore, in New York it is usually an inside job where somebody who has some close relation to the store is able to access the jewels and money and get away with it. In New York City, it would be very hard to get away with acting violently in a store front because there are so many people flooding the streets of the diamond districts and there would be too many witnesses to the crime. It makes me nervous that my dad works in a profession where many robbers and bad people are out to steal from them. Diamonds and jewels are worth a lot and my mom also worries sometimes that it is not worth it to have my dad hurt in any way. I cannot believe that these men were able to organize this robbery ring for almost four months without being caught. I also wonder whether or not they had visas to be here or were living here illegally and were not caught for that. They deserve to go to jail for an extremely long time or at least pay restitution to those they have taken from. I hope the jewels will be recovered although I am sure the money and jewels are long gone. The image included is of the police car in Plaza Catalunya.