Thief hunters started noticing the change a while ago.
In the latest blows against the house robbery mafias, there were increasingly older detainees, but without criminal records and dedicated to more secondary tasks in criminal missions.
The policemen who go after these gangs asked the ringleaders who these new recruits were.
"They told us that many are people who in their countries have a normal job but with low wages and decide to join these gangs to do a few hits and get extra summer pay," says Inspector Aparicio, who heads the group of the National Police that investigates these mafias in Madrid.
The gangs look for them and they also look for criminals.
“We see them mostly in the Georgians,
Summer is a dangerous time for home burglaries and Madrid is still candy for thieves due to the number of opportunities it offers, like any other capital.
Police pressure and the increase in security systems have contributed to the downward trend of home robberies in Madrid, if we compare it with 2019, the year before the pandemic.
In the first half of 2022, 4,371 robberies have been registered in homes in the Community of Madrid, according to the latest data from the Ministry of the Interior.
In the same period of 2019 there were 5,441.
In 2020 and 2021, crime in general fell, mainly due to mobility restrictions and that is why the comparison with these years is more misleading.
The wigs worn by the five women detained by the National Police in June in Madrid.
With a first look at a stolen house, the investigators of Group 11, the one led by Aparicio, already know where they have to start pulling the strings to find the criminals.
Smell and experience indicate it.
And they don't usually fail.
In July alone, the Police have arrested 16 thieves specialized in housing in Madrid.
Here is a brief tour of Aparicio through the usual catalog with which they work: “In the Croatian mafias, the ones who steal are the women and they are experts in slips or screwdrivers;
Georgian women are all-male and experts at picking locks;
In the case of the mafias that come from Latin America, they are mixed teams, in which women carry out surveillance tasks or transport merchandise and use more brutality when accessing a house,
99%, he says, look for empty houses, that's why they put up signs or do surveillance to verify that they are not going to find the tenant.
Fewer problems and fewer convictions, because if there are victims present, the criminal classification changes.
But Aparicio names one last type of criminal they are pursuing, the one that scares the most: "The Albanian mafia, which has done an investigation and monitoring work and has everything prepared, will not care if you are at home."
camouflage queens
Despite the experience, researchers face challenges.
This March, complaints began to arrive insistently with the same way of acting.
Who were those women who constantly changed their appearance?
One day there were several blondes, another day they were taller, another day more plump... Their image on the security cameras was a mystery to those who watched them on the other side of the screen.
They had already stolen more than a million euros in wealthy neighborhoods of Madrid and it was urgent to stop them.
Three months of vigilance, monitoring and patience to find them, the wig thieves.
Three Croatian women and two Serbs who had become the queens of camouflage.
They were arrested and sent to prison in early June in Madrid.
Azucena, a police officer, pointing out the marks that thieves left on the door of a flat in Madrid and that they found last summer. Olmo Calvo
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 its victims.
So they can calculate to the millimeter their customs, their habits, the time it takes to travel... The main feature is 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 take in each house is 782 euros in the case of Madrid.
An amount very far from the loot of the most specialized gangs with which the investigators of group 11 find themselves.
This study throws up curious data such as the day last year on which the most robberies were recorded in the capital of Madrid: January 18.
The report also shows that the places where there are more possibilities for home robberies in Madrid are some of the municipalities with the highest income in Spain, as might be expected, such as Pozuelo de Alarcón, Villaviciosa de Odón or Boadilla del Monte.
What the experience also gives Aparicio is a little bit of anger when he talks about the locks he sees in most of the homes that are victims of a robbery: “We change the mattress for health and the mobile on a whim, but we are not able to see that a bowler hat that was placed 30 years ago and has not been touched is completely out of date.
For the inspector, this simple expense of 150 euros would go a long way.
“Then you want to set up alarms, or cameras, because everything helps”, he admits.
There is some awareness.
According to a study by Informa, a Spanish company specializing in the preparation of sectoral studies, there are 2.86 million alarms in Spain, and Madrid accounts for 25%.
What hurts the policemen the most when they have to respond to a call from a neighbor who has been robbed is to see their sadness at losing a memory: "They take your family's jewels, rings and pendants that have immense value for you and The only thing they are going to do is melt them down.”
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