Cartagena Spain, local theft puts police resources under pressure

2010-02-25

Guardia Civil have had a busy time of it recently, following a spate of orange rustling in the Cartagena Countryside and worried calls from beleagured farmers losing large volumes of fruit in night -time raids on their orchards.

Police became concerned by the scale of the theft, and the violence employed on more than one occasion when a suspected thief was challenged, and mounted extra patrols to try and catch the perpetrator under the title of, "Plan de prevencion de delitos en el campo de Cartagena" and on the 19^th of February they struck lucky.

Having carefully analysed the pattern of attacks, they mounted patrols in the areas which they believed the thief would target, and surely enough, the thief was picked up sneaking out of a finca, with the car loaded to the roof with oranges in the middle of the night.

On this occasion he had managed to squeeze( !) a thousand kilos of oranges into the car, adding to the 12,500 kilos he had stolen on previous occasions, as well as 1800 kilos of artichokes.

 

On the same night, a carpentry workshop was broken into and 3000 euros worth of tools stolen in the El Algar area of Cartagena. Following a trail, police soon realized that the thieves had actually hidden their booty in an agricultural store, obviously intending to come back for it later. Police mounted watch and that next evening the thieves came back, and were promptly arrested.

All of the perpetrators were of Moroccan origin.

 

There's been a real run of incidents like this in the last few weeks, as the numbers of both unemployed and those whose entitlement to benefits have ceased increase, around 32% of this regions unemployed having no further access to state help.

 

People have to eat, by whatever means.

 

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