Beach thieves arrested

NATIONAL Police have arrested five youngsters from Algeria and Morocco, two of them underage, who were stealing from distracted tourists on Alicante's Postiguet beach.

They acted as a group and began by lurking and studying people. When they chose their victims, generally tourists, they split up.

Two couples approached the victims initiating a brief conversation, taking advantage of any pretext, to distract them while the other gang member stole their belongings, mainly money and high range phones.

They would then leave the beach separately, hiding the stolen objects in a bag.

The suspects were detected by officers regularly patrolling the beach in summer to prevent petty crime. They identified the five youngsters as four of them individually began to distract some tourists as the other one stole their belongings and tried to run away.

When the group left the beach, the police intercepted them and found three mobile phones in the bag, as well as cash. Not only one of the phones had been reported as stolen, but each of the phones had a different language. All five suspects were arrested. Alicante’s provincial police station has established a special deployment with officers from the central and northern districts, the prevention and reaction unit (UPR) of the provincial station and the mounted unit constantly guarding the beaches and most crowded tourist areas to avoid pick pocketing and theft.

Foreign tourists visiting Spain also have access to the Foreign Tourist Assistance Service (SATE) where they will be helped filling out paperwork for police-related matters, locating family members, cancelling credit cards, contacting embassies or consulates, and providing tourist information.

As a precaution, police recommended to not bring excessive amounts of money to the beach and to guard your belongings at all time.