A morning hunting repeat offenders at El Prat Airport

The Prat de LlobregatIt's common in Hollywood action movies for police chases to end in public spaces like large squares, airports, or stations, with dozens of people making it difficult to catch the criminal. The next scene usually moves to a control center filled with huge screens, where you can see all the security cameras and the officers trying to find the fugitive's face in the crush of people. They approach, recede, rotate, change, and, in the most optimistic films, there's facial recognition. Cinema isn't so far from reality, and one July afternoon at El Prat Airport, two Mossos d'Esquadra officers look at six screens. Each one displays a mosaic of between six and nine cameras. They zoom in and observe a face. They turn right and notice a boarding queue. They zoom out and see a wide shot of Terminal T1. What exactly are they looking for?

Next to the screens is a wall with about thirty faces. They're passport photos accompanied by names, grouped into groups. On the monitors, they're looking for these faces, which correspond to the most common repeat thieves at the airport. There are more than 5,000 cameras throughout the infrastructure, and at this moment, there are also four undercover officers in Terminal T1 and two in Terminal T2. They're all looking for thieves. Suddenly, the radio comes on. A security guard has spotted one of the women in the photographs. Where is she? "At the Tango 1 intermodal station," they reply. The intermodal station is the airport's connection to public transportation, and Tango 1 is Terminal T1. The radio always speaks in the phonetic alphabet: A is alpha, D is delta, and T is tango. Three officers are addressing the scene.

In the last ten years, crimes at the airport had increased tenfold, as the ARA announced in the fall of 2024That October closed with 1,070 crimes, more than one every hour. This prompted the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) to react and implement a reinforcement program, the Faixa plan, which is beginning to yield results this summer. Joan Alfred Vives, deputy inspector of the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) and head of the regional airport security area, explains that at that time there was little "efficiency" and few "staff." Until recently, there was a pair of officers at each terminal. However, in nine months the number of officers has increased from 126 to 202, and from eight plainclothes officers to 24. "Our motto is to make the airport impregnable," says the deputy inspector.

The reinforcement has been noticed And in June, according to data accessed by ARA, thefts have been reduced by half. If there were 643 in 2024, the year 2025 closed with 300, also fewer than in 2023. Arrests: 169 were made in June, more than double the same month last year. All this while the increase in passengers continues: this June there were 5.2 million, 200,000 more than last year. businesses, so that they take more preventive measures, for example by incorporating more private security and deploying more cameras. Previously, only one car rental company had security guards. are empty. Now that the holidays are coming, it's time to "maintain the type," he adds.

The repeat offenders who come to El Prat, often fleeing the police pressure in Barcelona, ​​​​are "specialists, good, skilled," describes Vives. They are discreet. They look for queues for expensive flights (those to the United Arab Emirates, for example) or for Asian airlines, as travelers tend to be more "trusting." Some buy cheap flights, with open tickets, to steal within the restricted area and then cancel the flight.

The groups of faces glued to the board make it possible to differentiate the thieves. On one side are the men from Eastern European countries. They steal vehicles, make sticks (the slang term for committing a robbery) on the highway, later at the airport, and then leave. They flee far away, and look for new European airports to continue stealing. There is also a group of young faces from North Africa. These look for suitcases to steal when the owner is distracted. They arrive early in the morning, taking advantage of the fact that people are sleeping while waiting for a flight. Finally, there is a group of young women, also from Eastern Europe. They are experienced pickpockets who search pockets inside elevators and on walkways. "When you stop them, they always say they're pregnant," comments an officer.

"I'm pregnant," the woman the Mossos d'Esquadra intercepted at the T1 terminal intermodal station quickly remarks. And she repeatedly shows a paper that, a priori, proves her condition. She is one of the repeat offenders featured in the mural and cannot in any way justify why she is at the airport. She has fourteen previous arrests. Finally, the officers escort her to the exit, and she takes a bus to Barcelona. Everything points to her being with another woman, whom they have lost sight of and are trying to find using the cameras.

Another technique the police have implemented, after a lengthy dialogue with the judiciary and the prosecutor's office, is obtaining restraining orders against the infrastructure. They have obtained 59, and 38 are still in force. Their faces also appear on the mural. However, the repeat offenders keep coming: recently, two thieves stole a €70,000 Cartier watch from an American tourist. The Mossos d'Esquadra arrested them and returned everything to the victims. Two days later, they struck again, switching terminal T1 for T2, and stole €900 from a Korean man. They were arrested again. Just this Thursday, the Mossos d'Esquadra arrested an old acquaintance of the airport: he is the first thief with a restraining order, the "top 1" at El Prat, according to police sources. He stole material valued at €3,000 from a couple consisting of a Catalan woman and a Danish man. They were coming to Catalonia for a wedding. He robbed them in the Terminal 1 parking lot, and the Mossos d'Esquadra caught him shortly after thanks to their cameras.

The screens and the mural of faces are inside the Mossos d'Esquadra police station in Terminal T1. It's a station undergoing renovations, as they've just installed a containment area with three waiting rooms for detainees. Until now, they had a problem: they arrested so many people that queues formed. Now they'll be able to better regulate their schedules. Since May 2024, the Mossos d'Esquadra also have a 4,000-square-meter building outside Terminal T2, lent by Aena. It also houses public order officers and other units. They admit that, if they finally assume new responsibilities at airports, they'll need more space.

Suddenly, the police station crackles again. Something is happening in the square at the arrivals gates of Terminal T1. A father has lost his son, but a few minutes later they are reunited. They hug. A family is the same size a few meters away after being reunited.