A man of foreign nationality, who is in Portugal solely for the purpose of “committing crimes against tourists
The detention of the 57-year-old man took place in the framework of policing and criminal investigation in the Ever-present Police Operation: Safe Parties 2019/2020, after carrying out two theft crimes on Saturday in Lisbon, the Lisbon Metropolitan Command of Lisbon reported. Public Security Police (Cometlis), in a statement.
At about 4:25 pm on Saturday, the suspect stole a suitcase that had a mobile phone and personal effects in the Saldanha area of Lisbon, fleeing and eventually finding refuge in a hotel lobby. There he then stole property from a guest who was checking in at the time,” PSP said, adding that “all these actions were carried out discreetly, without the victims noticing.”
With a special security program in these commercial areas, in view of the current time of year, PSP sent investigators to the occurrence of these thefts, who had information that pointed out that this was the suspect and “were able to quickly detect it inside the hotel. , immediately after the second theft was committed, eventually detaining him “.
According to the PSP, the man arrested for being suspected of theft of two thefts in Lisbon had been under investigation since September this year, so it was possible to correlate him with “10 thefts in total, nine of them in Lisbon hotels and one against tourists “, in which he raised assets worth about 13,000 euros.
“It was illicitly introduced into hotel check-in, dining, and transit areas, and taking advantage of the symptomatic frenzy of these areas subtracted suitcases and luggage from the people who settled there,” PSP explained.
The detained man “is known in Europe as an international pickpocket, specializing in this criminal activity, and is in our country with the sole purpose of committing crimes against tourists,” said the PSP, adding that the suspect has several records of crimes committed in several European countries, notably Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland and France.
Present in court, the man was remanded in custody.