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The effects of the Dana that has devastated several areas of Spain, particularly impacting Valencia, are not only personal and material. Although most people were caught off guard by the floods in their homes or vehicles, some were inside shopping centres. Amidst the chaos caused by the emergency situation, many people took the opportunity to smash shop windows and enter various stores to take everything within their reach. Looting has occurred in many localities, especially in the Bonaire shopping centre in Aldaia and MN4 in Alfafar, as well as in Paiporta, the ground zero of the Dana, and Catarroja.
The National Police arrested 60 people on Wednesday night, including several minors, for thefts in the commercial areas most affected by the storms. According to the police, officers have recovered "a multitude of stolen goods". An increase in the number of arrests is expected, as the Guardia Civil has not yet released its data. On Thursday, a court in Torrent (Valencia) sent to prison four detainees for looting a shopping centre.
Among the items that were stolen were bottles of water or food, but also clothes, shoes and hundreds of luxury items. In fact, the images that went viral on social media enabled the police to make the arrests. In one of them, a group of people could be seen opening the shutters of a shop to take whatever they could.
The security services have been obliged to withdraw personnel from the work of rescuing the victims to patrol the areas where they are located in order to prevent the thefts from continuing. The main target of these thieves are objects of high economic value that are not very bulky, such as computers, mobile phones or brand-name perfumes, according to officers assigned to prevent them.
A head of the Guardia Civil in Valencia, Jesús Díaz, confirmed that "criminals are entering any premises, any house or place from which they can steal something". Díaz said that there is no specific profile of criminals, but organised gangs may be operating in the towns most devastated by the storm.
The poice force had foreseen this type of crime from the outset "because this is what tends to happen in these situations, so part of our operational plan is aimed at preventing looting".
"There is no specific profile, there may be organised gangs that take advantage of the circumstances or the conventional thief who sees the opportunity and takes advantage of it," he said.
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