the essential
The objective of this scam set up in Spain is to steal the victims’ personal effects by capturing their attention elsewhere. The many French people living in the south of France and who do their shopping on the other side of the Pyrenees must be vigilant.
Many French people, living in the southwest of France near Spain, do not hesitate to cross the Pyrenees to do their shopping at lower costs. If this is your case, be careful because a new scam has been plaguing supermarket car parks lately, reports the Independent.
Called “harvest theft”, this ruse used by the aigrefins aims to divert your attention. Once you have filled your trunk, a thief calls you and tells you that you have dropped an object on the ground (keys, wallet or phone for example). At the same time, an accomplice breaks into your vehicle to grab as many things as possible.
Absolute vigilance
The Mossos d’Esquadra (Police of Catalonia) even published a video on social networks which illustrates this apparently very widespread technique.
A woman shows up at the Manresa police station and informs us that her mobile phone has been stolen and tells her that she is here
We were just identifying citizens for thefts in parking lots using the seeding method and, during the search, we located the citizen’s phone. We stop them pic.twitter.com/q2JjSwflve
— Mossos (@mossos) https://twitter.com/mossos/status/1843909944623444201?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Local authorities are therefore urging supermarket customers to be vigilant and not be distracted by strangers.