Thief hunters noticed the change some time ago. In the last strikes against the house-robbing mafia, there were more and more older prisoners, but without criminal records and dedicated to more side tasks in criminal missions. The cops tracking these gangs asked the ringleaders who these new recruits were. “They told us that a lot of people have normal jobs in their countries, but with low wages, and choose to join these gangs to take a few hits and get some extra summer money,” says Inspector Aparicio, who manages the group head of the National Police investigating these mafias in Madrid. The gangs are looking for them and they are looking for criminals too. “We see them mainly among Georgians, it is a social problem that they see the standard of living of thieves and see it that way,” concludes the commissioner.
Summer is a dangerous time for home burglaries and Madrid, like any other capital, is still a treat for thieves due to the many opportunities it offers. Police pressure and the increase in security systems have contributed to the downward trend in home theft in Madrid if we compare it to 2019, the year before the pandemic. In the first half of 2022, according to the latest data from the Ministry of the Interior, 4,371 thefts were recorded in apartments in the Autonomous Community of Madrid. In the same period of 2019, there were 5,441. In 2020 and 2021 crime has generally decreased, mainly due to reduced mobility, so the comparison to these years is rather misleading.
The wigs of the five women arrested by the National Police in Madrid in June.
With a first look at a stolen home, Aparicio’s Group 11 investigators already know where to start to find the culprits. Smell and experience indicate this. And they don’t usually fail. In July alone, the police in Madrid arrested 16 thieves specializing in housing construction. Here’s Aparicio’s quick tour of the usual catalog they work with: “With Croatian mafias, it’s the women who steal and they’re experts at slips or screwdrivers; Georgian women are all-male and experts at lockpicking; Mafias originating from Latin America are mixed teams, where women take over surveillance tasks or transport goods and are more brutal when entering a house, and with Spanish gangs we see criminals who came from other modalities, such as car theft”.
99%, he says, are looking for empty homes, so they put up signs or conduct surveillance to make sure they won’t find the tenant. Fewer problems and fewer convictions because when victims are present, the criminal classification changes. But Aparicio names a last type of criminals they are pursuing that scares them the most: “The Albanian mafia, which has done investigative and surveillance work and has prepared everything, will not care whether you are at home.”
Camouflage Queens
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Despite the experience, researchers face challenges. This March, complaints began pouring in using the same modus operandi. Who were these women who kept changing their looks? One day there were multiple blondes, another day they were taller, another day they were fuller… Their image on the security cameras was a mystery to those watching on the other side of the screen. They had already stolen more than a million euros from wealthy areas of Madrid and there was an urgent need to stop them. Three months of vigilance, surveillance and patience to find them, the wig thieves. Three Croatian women and two Serbs turned camouflage queens. They were arrested and taken to prison in Madrid in early June.
Azucena, a police officer, points out the marks left by thieves on an apartment door in Madrid last summer. bare elm
In general, thieves are professional, cunning, equipped with the latest technologies and follow new trends. One of them is to put a tracking system on the victims. So they can calculate their habits, their habits, the travel time to the millimeter… The main feature is the roaming through different cities and countries, like that of the wig thieves. According to the annual report of Unespa, a business association that brings together insurance companies in Spain, the average cost of what thieves steal from each home is €782 in the case of Madrid. An amount far from the loot of the most specialized gangs that Group 11 investigators find themselves with. And when they’re minimally professional, they don’t take electronic devices, they take money and jewelry,” summarizes Aparicio.
This study provides curious dates like the day last year when most robberies were recorded in Madrid: January 18th. The report also shows that the places where there are more opportunities for home theft in Madrid are, as expected, some of the highest income communities in Spain, such as Pozuelo de Alarcón, Villaviciosa de Odón or Boadilla del Monte.
What’s more, Aparicio’s experience elicits a bit of anger as he talks about the locks he sees on most homes that have been the victim of a robbery: “We change the mattress for health reasons and the cell phone on a whim, but we don’t see that a melon placed 30 years ago and left untouched is completely outdated. For the examiner, this simple expense of 150 euros would mean a lot. “Then you want to set up alarm systems or cameras, because everything helps,” he admits. There is a certain awareness. According to a study by Informa, a Spanish company specializing in drawing up industry studies, there are 2.86 million alarms in Spain, with Madrid accounting for 25%.
What pains cops most when they have to respond to a call from a robbed neighbor is their grief at the loss of a memory: “You take jewelry from your family, rings and pendants that hold immense value to you and The One.” what they’re going to do is melt them down.”
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