Watch your bag!

Along with modernisme and tapas, Barcelona is world-renowned for petty crime. Crime statistics are notoriously unreliable, here as anywhere else, but during the tourist season there are an estimated 6,000 thefts per day. Before the pandemic sent tourist numbers plummeting, Barcelona was one of the worst cities in the world for pickpockets.

Visitors by the thousand complain how the Barcelonans (and especially the police) seem totally indifferent to the problem. Locals seem to think the perpetrators are foreigners (which is often true), as are the victims (again true; locals are more street savvy), so it's nothing to do with them. And the police have little incentive to attack the problem; punishments for petty crime are laughable, and the courts often just throw offenders back on the street.