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CRIME

Police sprinting champ bags Spanish purse snatchers

Two Spanish robbers who tried to flee on foot after snatching a bag containing 3,000 euros ($3,300) met with more than they bargained for when one of the police officers pursuing them turned out to be a record-holding sprinter.

Published: 24 December 2019 15:12 CET
Police sprinting champ bags Spanish purse snatchers
Photo: Depositphotos

The pair snatched the bag on Friday from a man who had just been to a bank in the southern Spanish city of Seville, the city's emergency services said on its official Twitter feed. 

He quickly alerted the police, saying the bag snatchers had fled in a car. After realising the police were on their tail, they abandoned the car and tried to run — but were quickly outpaced, Seville's ABC newspaper reported.

“The suspects, who had just stolen more than 3,000 euros in Seville, didn't know that one of the local police officers who was chasing them was a world-record-holding relay runner, and a Spanish champion with a European masters record for 400 metres,” the emergency services tweeted.

“Running for 200-300 metres, I can do that” very quickly, the police officer told Antena3 television, giving his name only as Sergio. And on collaring one of the crooks, Sergio could not resist telling him: “You've had a bit of bad luck, mate!”

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CRIME

Spain investigates letters ordering companies to not hire foreigners

For five years, numerous companies in Spain's northern Navarre region have been receiving e-mails urging them to not hire foreign workers and threatening them with boycotts if not, correspondence that's now being investigated as a hate crime.

Published: 19 September 2024 10:04 CEST
Spain investigates letters ordering companies to not hire foreigners

The email address  from which they were sent was always the same, the wording very similar. As far as authorities know, they continued for at least five years between 2017 and 2023.

A court in Pamplona has now taken the matter on and is investigating these e-mails as a possible hate crime.

Some of these e-mails were sent to the director of a residence in Estella/Lizarra in 2020. He received up to 10 of these from the same sender urging him to “nationalise his workforce”.

He publicly denounced the e-mail and released it. The text read: “In the face of possible economic reactivation after the current pandemic, we encourage you to nationalise your workforce; that is, to replace immigrants (including those who are naturalised) with nationals or, if you were to increase the workforce, to hire only nationals. Internally or externally (clients, neighbours, suppliers, etc.) we already know which companies have too many foreigners, and with that information, lists of companies have been made according to sectors so that people know who they employ with their money. Contracting is free, but so is consumption. This is politically incorrect, but not at all illegal. It is simply necessary”.

Many other companies received similar emails around the same time.

In the summer of 2023 the case reached the Racism and Xenophobia Assistance Service (SARX), which decided to carry out an investigation and finally passed it on to the Prosecutor’s Office.

Now, the first Investigative Court of Pamplona is investigating the size and scale of this situation to see how many companies the letters have actually reached.

Johanna Flores, lawyer and coordinator of the Racism and Xenophobia Assistance Service, has emphasised the importance of these e-mails being investigated as a possible crime: “It is very positive because when there is a person who wants to systematically send emails of this kind, they will think twice, since they know that it could have a criminal nature”.

Almost half of all new workers in Navarra in the last year are foreigners, according to 2024 social security figures.

Spain’s National Security Council warned the government about a rise in xenophobia and racist hate crimes back in 2019. There have also been numerous counts of racial discrimination towards prospective tenants and home-buyers. 

In 2023 Real Madrid star Vinicius was racially abused in Spain’s top flight football league. Writing on Instagram, Vinicius said Spain was viewed as “a country of racists” in his homeland.

READ ALSO: The racism problem that has blighted Spanish football

This type of racial abuse is not new in Spanish football.. In 2004, thousands of Spanish fans shouted racial insults at black players during an England-Spain match at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid. This prompted outrage in the UK and threatened to escalate into a diplomatic row, with both prime ministers at the time – Tony Blair and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero – condemning the actions.

Alba García Martín, a member of the anti-racism NGO SOS Racismo has explained: “The immigration law is racist to its core. It does not allow you to regularise your migration status for three years, it pushes immigrants to employment off-the-books and does not provide you any kind of rights as a citizen. All the other racial issues derive from this law. There is no anti-racist legislation, for example, for crimes related to racism. There are no anti-racist laws,” she adds. 

READ MORE: Spain to debate blanket legalisation of its 500,000 undocumented migrants

It’s hoped that if these e-mails are found to be a hate crime, it will set a precedent and stop others from considering these types of attacks in the future.

READ ALSO: ‘Homologación’ – How Spain is ruining the careers of thousands of qualified foreigners

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