A multiple repeat offender, a resident of Calella (Maresme), was recorded by a television camera while he appropriated a backpack on the Barceloneta beach in Barcelona. Once arrested, he admitted having stolen more than 200 times on the Catalan beaches and that he does it to survive. He moves from his city, Calella, where he is well known by the police, to operate in Barcelona, ??where the Guàrdia Urbana also has him on file. In total he accumulates more than 100 complaints.
Jaume, as he calls himself the lover of foreign things, in mid-August appropriated the backpack of some tourists while they were bathing on the Barceloneta beach. Unfortunately, a television program on the Cuatro network recorded him and he was immediately arrested by agents of the Guàrdia Urbana, who just as quickly released him after denouncing him and returning the stolen goods to the victims. The amount of what was stolen did not exceed 400 euros, insufficient to start the arrest process. Despite this, the thief claimed to have spent six months in prison.
They know the robber better in Calella, where he resides and began his criminal adventures, selling drugs in winter and stealing objects from tourists and in commercial establishments. The control that the agents of the city of Maresme impose on him, where they identify him every time they locate him, forced him to move to other tourist towns until he ended up in Barcelona, ??where he is now clearly identified as well.
Precisely in Barcelona, ??the new municipal government has an impact on dealing with the large number of criminals who move to the city in summer, as the Deputy Mayor for Security, Albert Batlle, admitted in a recent interview published by La Vanguardia.
Before the cameras of the program, Jaume acknowledged that he has sold drugs and has even carried out some robbery at homes, and that from the petty thefts he carries out along the coast, he can get about 30 euros a day. He admits that many times he gets away with it because the victims do not want to start legal proceedings. Only for recidivism can a two-year prison sentence be requested, but the dispersion of the files in various courts makes it impossible most of the time, a system that is also well known to criminals.
In Calella, the merchants through social networks lament that, like Jaume, there are hundreds of thieves who commit petty thefts in establishments. A situation that, apart from generating a great feeling of insecurity, ends up harming the client since the cost of the theft is reflected in the sale price of the product from the beginning of the season, as stated by the digital Calella.com. Those affected demand a tougher sentence for multiple repeat offenders since once they are arrested “after a few days we see them hanging around here again” as a local waiter points out.
