Hi, we recently arrived from a wonderful trip to Spain, basically Castille and Leon and a three days in Madrid.
I love Spain. However I feel it is my duty as it is painful to me only to remember it, to tell you that we were mugged in the subway in Madrid.
It was March 4 th a lovely Sunday morning. We were a little off guard, and that is what I wish to stress DO NOT BE OFF GUARD never. There were very few people at that subway station , Plaza de Alonso Martinez ,a few blocks from the British Embassy, but when the train was arriving a bunch of 6 or 5 big guys, well dressed blocked our entrance to the wagon. Someone made believe he dropped a cigarrette and thus some of them bended, when I shout QUE PASA AQUI, he had the nerve to respond, and I believe his accent was Rumanian.( a Latin language that is easy to recognize and I happen to know a few words)
I guess their nationality is unimportant ,a few things were stolen from us , including a drivers licence, we felt so stupid, we felt really disgusted with ourselves for being off guard.
They way they act though so many of them together coming out of the blue moon , is scary and once you are targeted it is, I believe, difficult to avoid them.
My honest advice would be , be twice as alert as in any previous trip, do not carry anything, anything with you, and do not be a fool as we were by taking the subway.
I honestly hope this helps people traveling to big cities. We go every year to Spain, we love it, and will come back .

Hi G,

From your description, you seem to have been robbed, but not mugged.

I do hope that you weren't hurt.

Just one of many such incidents documented on Fodors in Madrid and Barcelona - to me it's a scandal that authorities don't try to do more to stop it. So let's keep publicizing this terrible aspect of these two cities in hopes that publicity will cause these cities to lose tourist dollars and act again street crime which seems rife in these cities.
My sister-in-law was mugged, not robbed at 7am on a Sunday morning in front of Atocha station and got bruised and a black eye - meanwhile some shopkeepers stop nearby doing nothing.

Everytime i mention these crimes in these two times there are folks who say it's exaggerated and that i'm some kind of a Cassandra. But i'm on a crusade to publicize this to save folks who are unsuspecting of a similar fate.

You said you were a "little off guard." Assuming that you still took the subway, what could you have done to have prevented the attack? It seems like if 5 or 6 big guys block your way, there's not a lot you can do. If you had been totally looking out, could you have avoided the guys in advance?

The same exact thing happened to me in the Sol Metro station on Saturday night. As I was about to enter the train, about 4 men pushed in front of me, and sure enough, my wallet was taken. They were from Romania - I know this because the Vigilancia caught them and told me so. Of course my wallet was long gone, so they couldn´t do anything.

Like Graziella5b, I love Spain, and will still continue to visit, but I will always remember this unfortunate incident.

What could you have done to avoid this, Missypie asks?

1. Remember that early Sunday morning (when two of these attacks occured) is the end of Saturday night in Spain. Some clubs don't close until 8 AM, and there are people going home then who make easy marks for bad guys. Tourists are usually even easier marks than drunks. Maybe taking a taxi early Sunday morning is a better idea.

2. Keep your guard up, as the OP knew. If you get to the platform and it is empty, maybe you ought to wait back near the ticket booth until more people arrive, even if you miss a train. Don't be in a hurry to get on the train until you see who is getting off and who is standing near the door. If they look sketchy, don't get on or enter another car. Yes, it seems like the train is only in the station a short time, but you can do it. And if you can't, another train always comes along.

This is stuff you know if you live in a big city, but you don't if you live in a small city and don't take public transportation.

this seems to be a pretty good M.O. for the metro, bus, etc. - block the doors with some kind of ruse, and the operators behind and alongside you can take a generous amount of time going through your things. I wonder if the single-mindedness of most visitors (THIS is our stop! we HAVE to get off here!) makes it easier to pull this stunt on us. The locals usually holler "Que bruto!" and dismissively scatter most of the kids trying this, but a concerted group of men would be hard to ignore. But I wonder what the outcome might have been if you'd worked your way back into the car & were stuck in there with the thugs until the next stop. Excellent advice about vigilance, however, you can still be wide-eyed and more carefree in safer environs.

Thank you Ira, my English is not that precise, may be I was robbed, or lightly mugged.
It was not early Sunday morning it was after noon, like 12.30, or is this early for Madrid ?
If you want to know there were very few persons at the place we were taking the train, the moment it was arriving they appeared out of the blue moon.
I guess once been targeted taking the train or staying would have been the same because they were quiet a few , pushing and heavy jostling , and then that tall well dressed man telling me that he has dropped a cigarette....!!!!! What a nerve, that very second I knew it, but as he said that he joined his fellow crooks and was gone.

I wish to clarify he told me that because I shouted
QUE PASA, but they had already taken the things from my husband's pocket, he joined them and was gone.

The U.S. State Department i believe a bit back issued a warning about metros from the airport into town. Last time i rode there was a policeman posted in every car. Now i know why.

Cassandra

I will say that we saw lots of cops at the busy metro stations in the evenings in Barcelona; quite a few had muzzled dogs. Sounds like the cops need to be at the quiet metro stations.

A friend was swarmed twice this summer in Spain, in two different cities, and once they got her passport. She had so been looking forward to her return to Spain, but now she's never going back, she says, which is unfortunate, but I guess I can understand. This is a person who was well-experienced, well-traveled, and had lived in other countries before.

These types of unfortunate incidents can happen to anyone, even to people who live in big cities and have taken public transportation their whole lives.

I didn't realize things were as bad also in Madrid! Of course, Barcelona is a well known fact although many people insist in saying it is "like in any other big city". Unfortunately, NOT!

Hi G,
>Thank you Ira, my English is not that precise, may be I was robbed, or lightly mugged.<

Had you been mugged you would know it.

Muggers operate by attacking their victims and rendering them semiconscious by beating or choking before they rob them.

I'm pleased that you weren't hurt.

Graziellla5b - seems you were mugged and perhaps you have a better grasp of the English language than fokes in Jo-Ja!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look up Mugging in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Mugging is a type of robbery, in which the perpetrator (the mugger) accosts the victim in a public place, such as a street or parking lot, and demands money and/or valuables. The robber will typically threaten to use a weapon such as a gun or knife, but mugging can also involve physically beating the victim. Mugging differs from theft in its use of violence or intimidation.

Just to clarify what I wrote earlier: nothing I said was meant to blame the victim. I have been mugged (beaten into the gutter and robbed) on a well lighted street in the northeast, and I was with a friend who as "pickpocketed" by a group on the Metro between Bastille and St Paul in Paris. It happens.

But I did want to suggest that there are things you can do to reduce the odds.

If I had crossed the street when I saw the group of guys hanging out next to a car, I would have been less likely to be mugged. If my friend had not worried about missing his stop and had stood in the middle of the Metro car rather than near the door, he would have been less likely a target.

I think that most people are pretty aware on their own turf. I work in downtown Dallas and I have walked to my car in the parking garage many times late at night. I've not gotten off the elevator on the floor I pressed because I didn't like who was on that floor; I've pretended to have forgotten something in my office to avoid getting on certain elevators. But you've got me...in Barcelona, when it was our metro stop, we by gosh were going to get off. I guess if there had been a riot or something we would have stayed on, but I don't think we were savvy enough to have stayed on if the platform just "didn't look right."

I witnessed a theft this past week at the Goya Metro in Madrid, Sunday afternoon, around 5 or 6 PM.

It was my first Metro ride in Madrid.

I was mindful of some accounts on these forums about people being picked from behind while someone in front of you held you up or bumped into you.

So when I got to the platform, I stayed near the entrance/exit against one of the side walls. Well there was a guy who came up behind me. Straight hair, maybe 150-160 pounds. I didn't like having this guy in front of me.

It was a long wait for the train and at one point, this guy behind me convo'd with another guy who had been standing near the edge of the platform but also close to the entrance/exit of the platform.

This other guy was about the same size, maybe a bit larger, had curly hair and darker complexion. I don't know what gypsies look like. To me, this second guy looked kind of Hispanic (as opposed to Spanish), while the first guy looked more European/Spanish. But he could have been Rumanian or whatever.

Finally the train arrived and I noticed both of them heading into the same train door, the one nearest the platform entrance/exit. That same door was the nearest to me but I veered off and took the next door or the one after the next.

Wasn't anticipating anything but I saw some jostling in the front train where the two guys had gone in. I didn't see what happened but the two guys ran out of the train and ran thru the exit tunnels.

Their victims were an older couple. The husband was pretty good sized but his cheeks looked flushed. They each were carrying or towing some luggage, like at least a carryon and some assorted smaller bags.

Not sure what was stolen but the couple got off the train.

Later, I wished I had my camera handy to take pics.

I noticed some stations have cameras and others have security presence here and there, typically groups of cops or metro police or whatever. Saw a dog once.

Cops in general seem sporadically dispersed around the city. Some of the buildings had guards with automatic weapons but that may have been more for ceremonial reasons.

I seem to recall a much more visible police presence in Barcelona last March. Especially down in the Ramblas.

Also a lot of cops around in the day in Buenos Aires too.

Not suggesting in any way that Spain or Hispanic countries have more security issues than other countries. I've seen visible security in other European cities of course.

Anyways, after witnessing this, I always went to the middle of the platform, rather than near the entrance/exits. I did usually stand near the doors, preferably with my back to the wall or the door opposite the one which opened. Kept my wallet in my chest pocket of my coat (it was very cold this week), often buttoned up. Left my passport at the apartment where I stayed and most places, especially El Corte Ingles, only required looking at my California Drivers License before charging my credit card.

I was robbed in Rome near Termini and I know three other people this happened to. Rome is not as safe as those damn guidebooks say but I have returned four times since this happened. However, now I wear my handbag in my coat or try not to wear one at all.

I felt very ashamed when I was robbed too. When I went to do the denunzia at the police station, I did so in Italian but the the police still treated me like crap and like it was my fault. They told me I should go to the hospital because it would be better for the report since I had sustained an injury.

When I got to the hospital the nurse told me in Italian: "This is not America, you know. You can not go around showing all your wealth here like you do there. Ok? Not everyone here is rich,OK?"
I felt so humiliated and was limping everywhere. The doctors came to examine me and basically had an attitude like "Why are you wasting our time with this bullsh--? Can't you see we are busy?"
The ironic part was I was not wearing anything expensive. I just had the bad luck to be caught aroud Termini alone on a rainy Monday night.

Don't blame yourself. It happens to the best of us-natives, tourists, etc. Alot of Roman women told me they try not to walk the streets after 10 pm alone. I just figured since I was from NY I was invincible. So not true.