In the early hours of yesterday, there was the theft of 24 electrical equipment from lighting on a football field in the neighborhood of l’Espirall, in the town of Vilafranca del Penedès. All the sports equipment was disabled and the scheduled activities that required artificial lighting had to be suspended, although work is already underway to relocate them until the repair can be carried out.
The cost of the restoration could reach 15,000 euros and it is estimated that it could take up to three weeks to fix the incident given that, according to the City Council of the capital of the Alt Penedès region, “in the wholesale market there is no stock of these stolen devices. The theft report has already been made at the Vilafranca Mossos d’Esquadra police station and a joint investigation will be opened with the city’s Local Police.
Last February there was already another robbery at dawn on the municipal athletics track, also of the electrical equipment of the lighting towers. In this case, the stolen material was 25 starter kits for high-power spotlights (2,000 W). The lighting on the athletics track was also affected, causing the facility to have much less light output than usual while the problem persisted.
Sources from the Mossos d’Esquadra have told this newspaper that various inspections have been carried out at scrap dealers “to check if the stolen material has been bought without knowing that it had been stolen.” For now, the investigations have turned out to be unsuccessful and it is unknown if the perpetrators of both robberies in Vilafranca could be the same.
In order to prevent future thefts, the Vilafranca City Council has announced that it plans to place opening sensors in all the electrical cabinets that will be connected to the alarm center and that it will be added to the alarm system that the sports facilities already have. Currently, there are also anti-intrusion alarms in all the facilities and a video surveillance circuit and, during the weekends, the Consistory has a permanent 24-hour surveillance service in the sports area.
