The Bulgarian tennis player Grigor Dimitrov was in Barcelona for the Conde Godó tournament. He was driving a vehicle through the city center -April 14, 2023- when a motorist folded his rearview mirror. He rolled down the window to reposition it using the closest hand, the left, the one with the watch on.. The Bianchet (70,000 euros) disappeared from his wrist.
It was not necessary to do the rear-view mirror trick on Robert Lewandowski. When lowering the window to sign some autographs -August, 2022- the Barça player was snatched a Patek Phillippe (70,000 euros). Two months earlier -June 2022- another footballer, Dani Olmo, had a 30,000-euro Rolex stolen in Valencia. The Saudi Arabian ambassador to Spain and his wife were walking through the center of Madrid on April 30 when a motorist pointed a gun at them and stole another Rolex (25,000 euros).. Of the same brand (8,000 euros) was the watch that was taken from the chief prosecutor of the Balearic Islands, Bartomeu Barceló, in Palma in December 2019. In the case of the Atlético de Madrid footballer Koke, it was an Audemars Piguet for 70,000 euros.
They are some of the most media victims of a type of crime, the theft of luxury watches, with enormous activity in the Spanish cities through which more tourists with high purchasing power move: Barcelona, Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Marbella and Ibiza fundamentally. In the latter, the record theft to date occurred: a Richard Mille (RM) 50-03 MCLaren F1 valued at 1,150,000 euros owned by a 25-year-old tourist from Azerbaijan.
Such is the incidence of theft of luxury watches in these towns that some, such as Marbella or Barcelona, have created police groups dedicated exclusively to fighting against it.. In Barcelona, the Titani team began operating in May 2022 and in the six months that it was in operation -the most touristy- there were 229 arrests of watchmakers, as these thieves are called, 100 of them directly as a result of the work of those from Titani .
This May they have been activated again and are considering staying beyond the tourist season, explains Josep Naharro, head of the Criminal Investigation Division (DIC) of Barcelona. Those of the DIC are responsible for the last major police operation in the city. Started by the Titani group, they took over it when they detected that there could be a criminal organization behind it.. And so it was.
The group deactivated this May -seven detainees- is very representative of how these gangs operate. They are above all, explains Naharro, itinerant groups that act in different parts of Europe. This gang in question had been in Barcelona for between 9 and 12 months and accumulated 72 records between robberies committed in Catalonia and other previous ones in Switzerland and Germany.. “Until 2019 they were carried out exclusively by organized crime, gangs from other countries that came, took a loot of X watches and left. They saw that the most dangerous thing was to commit the robbery itself, because there is more criminal reproach and more chances of being caught, and they have given that part to local criminals,” says Naharro.
Thus, of the seven detainees, two were Spanish -the perpetrators of the robbery- and the other five members of the gang itself, of North African origin.. “One of them looks at the wrists, detects a good watch and marks the victim. One or two go towards that person and, in the best of cases, distract them by giving them a hug and misleading them while the other pulls their leash. If the person turns around, a third party tries to obstruct him to facilitate the escape,” explains Naharro.
To escape they use electric scooters so the Mossos are trying that, just as it is forbidden to drive who commits a crime with a car, the same thing happens to those who use a scooter. They are also focused on trying to attack the reception. “If we neutralize the reception, if no one buys watches, no one will steal them, but we have the handicap of the little penalty provided in the Penal Code, which makes it impossible to make in-depth investigations,” Naharro laments. The receiver, he adds, “turns on the green light for the crime to begin” when he says he is going to Barcelona on a certain date. “He arrives one night with an empty suitcase and leaves the next day with a full one.”