The Plaza De Santa Ana is a beautiful place to enjoy a day in Madrid. You can sit and watch the world go by as you eat and drink with your friends. But, the Plaza De Santa Ana is also somewhere to be on your guard. Like a lot of places in Spain, the Plaza De Santa Ana has its fair share of pickpockets. My friend from footy is one lucky lucky fella. God knows how, but this weekend whilst we were on a stag do, he caught a thief in the act of stealing his mobile, an iphone none the less. I guess he like so many others is guilty of leaving valuables on a restaurant/bar table when sitting with friends and having a good time, but probably the last thing any of us ever expects when on holiday is for a small child to try and lift our possessions from right under your nose.
Plaza De Santa Ana – a musician out to make some money
Robbed in Plaza De Santa An … almost.
Madrid is a city full of homeless and poor, this is obviously very very sad. If you’re sitting around in any of the main squares eating and drinking, expect to be asked for money at least once an hour. Some people will perform a ‘skill’ for money, others will just ask outright. Obviously all of them will tug on the heart strings, but none more so than young children. It was the day we were due to fly home when two small children, a young boy and a slightly old girl, approached our table in the Plaza De Santa Ana, with what looked to be something written in English written on an A4 piece of paper. The girl went around the table asking our group to sign the paper whilst the boy simply asked for money. Most of our group either gave the boy a euro, or carried on their conversations. But then out of nowhere we heard …
“Oi, give that back you little sh*t”
Everyone in the Plaza De Santa Ana swung round to see one of our lads clinging onto the young girls wrist with one arm as he prized his phone from her with the other, she had been rather naughty and my friend has very nearly been robbed in Madrid!
It seems so obvious now, the paper meant sod all, it was just a decoy as was the boy’s requests for money. He didn’t really care about the odd euro he was given, his job was to draw attention away from his partner in crime who was seeking out items of a higher value. The trick with the piece of paper the girl had was to first shove it in someone’s face, and then bring it down onto the table covering the valuable possession and taking it out of sight. Then when she had seemingly given up on getting our friend to sign her paper, she picked both the paper and his phone up in one swift movement as the piece of paper had been covering the phone – a bit like in these videos where the newspaper covers the item being stolen.
How the pickpockets get you
Luckily our friend managed to catch the girl and get his phone back, others weren’t so lucky. How do you know that you may ask, well it wasn’t long before the same two kids were back and working on another table, this time a table of locals. Along with a member of staff, we recognised the kids and raised the alarm, just in time for someone to notice their phone was gone and to be able to grab the little boy this time. He burst into tears as the person who caught the him didn’t hesitate in reaching down the boys trousers to retrieve not only their phone, but a couple of other items such as someones wallet. I’m sure in the UK if you did that the kid would get off scot free and you’d go to jail for sexual assault on a minor. Either way the girl grabbed the little boy whilst he was still in floods of tears and they both feld the scene. No one chased them, what could you do I guess, have them arrested? Thinking about the tears, I’m sure they were just a self protection act to switch the attention to the grown up acting aggressively.
The cost of being robbed
It’s obviously sad that these two small children have to resort to stealing. Their motives were probably to sell the phone so they could buy something to eat. But that said, while I wish them not to go hungry, I also wouldn’t wish anyone to have their possessions stolen in this manner, or any manner. Having a phone or wallet stolen is tough, I should know my Mrs. had her bag lifted from a restaurant not so long ago, she was shaking for hours with both rage and fear. We had to cancel all her cards, change passwords, buy her a new phone, change locks, inform her landlord etc etc it was horrible. If you’re abroad I would imagine its much worse, you could lose …
- ALL you cash
- Credit cards (which may get used)
- Room key
- Phone
- Passport
- Visa’s
- Other forms of ID such as your driving license
- Reservation documents
There’s probably loads more I can’t think of, but in effect you could become stranded. So the key is I guess, keep your possessions close, ideally in a zipped pocket on your body somewhere. Don’t give thieves the opportunity to take your stuff, because they will!
Tips for staying safe whilst in Madrid
Whilst looking for video’s on scams and pickpockets in Madrid I found this article, if you’re worried about your possessions when visiting the city have a little read. Don’t let it or this article put you off of visiting Madrid as it is beautiful, but just be wary that you as a traveller/tourist could be an easy target if you don’t take care. Don’t let yourself get robbed in Madrid – Pickpockets techniques and scams in Madrid
I recently wrote a piece about the three crimes I saw during two days in Rome (http://wp.me/p2mcFx-oi). I was the victim in one of those cases – a gypsy family sitting down used the distraction of a baby being thrust into my face to cover up the fact that another girl was trying to rifle my pockets. Luckily my (now) wife saved me from them but it was a strange whirlwind experience. Anyway, I bought some ‘travel pants’ (that don’t look crap) with various hidden pockets a few weeks ago and to be honest I think they might solve a lot of any potential problems. Thief: good luck determining which pocket has the goods in it, and then HOW you get into that pocket! Can’t get around that moment when you happily plonk your phone on the restaurant table though :o/
@Chris – Sorry to hear that Chris. The pants sound like a good idea, but ideally it shouldnt have to come to that. The phone on the table thing was silly yes, but it dont think it was something my mate would have done if he was on his own, as we had more than 10 of us at the table he probably thought it was safe.
Oh yeah don’t get me wrong, I agree – I hate the fact that travelers/local revelers are a target and that we even have to think about this stuff. This world eh, tut!
Wowie… had heard of all this. Seeing it like this makes it real. This sh!te’s crazy man!! I’m going to be SO careful from on. Brrr…
Yeah just keep you wits about you and be sensible and you should be ok. My general rules of thumb are
1. Never leave stuff on the table
2. Always wind your bag straps around the leg of your chair when sitting down
3. Lock your bag
4. If anyone shoves anything in your face move away immediately as its probably a distraction technique
I almost got scammed in Madrid too. I wrote a post about it a while ago. There were kids asking me to sign a petition for blind and deaf people. It would be so cold-hearted to say no. But then they asked for change. By this point they had me hooked. I reached for some small coins and they swarmed around me. One asked for ID ‘to check my signature’. I said no but before I knew it she had my credit card in her hand! I got it back and prevented them from taking anything else, but figured since they’d probably collectively memorised the numbers and already had my signature, I should probably cancel it…
Hey Neil! Cool write-up. There are scams everywhere in the world, but this one seems pretty popular in Spain! I was in Barcelona late last year and met a South African guy who had the same thing happen to him…
A bloke came up and was selling books, he puts the books out over the table (covering any valuables on the table) and then swipes stuff from underneath the books he is thrusting into your nose! This poor guy had JUST taken out 500 Euros and he lost the whole lot!!
@Ari – They know how to play on a persons weaknesses dont they. I never thought about it like that though, the signature thing is clever, all they need to do is swipe your wallet and then find a shop that doesnt require chip and pin, only a signature. Clever!
@Tom – 500 euro is a hell of a lot of money to lose, thats terrible. You like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I’m now starting to think that if anyone other than a waiter approaches you in a main sq you’re probably best off putting your hands in your pockets and saying nothing to encourage them. Thanks for your comment!
Dodgy, dodgy Spain. I was robbed on the way to Madrid. That was four years ago or so but I still haven’t blogged about it – it makes me too angry to think about. P.S. I see you fixed your Comment Love!
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@Simon – I’m sure Madrid has loads to offer otherwise, shame this incident left a black dot against it.
Yeah FINALLY sorted comment love. My server host updated their share policy which stopped the outwards link … i’m sure you wanted to know that