Here’s an interesting article by Richard Morley about the increasing problem of pickpocketing in Madrid. It starts out by describing the experience of a new and more sinister approach I haven’t heard of before, the ‘show me your passport, I’m a policeman’ intimidation approach, which sounds most unpleasant.
Madrid is getting a deserved, and bad, reputation of this sort of tourist-targeting street crime now, which is a real shame (we used to say, “Oh, that sort of thing only happens in Barcelona…”)
It’s about time Spain got tough on this. If they can cut this kind of crime down in other big cities, then why not here?
Notes from Spain by Ben Curtis 