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Opportunists employing crafty M.O. to swipe belongings Concerns are rising across the Algarve at the number of incidents involving devious handbag-snatching ploys; in some cases, the blatant criminals apply bold and well-practiced modi operandi to carry out their stings in broad daylight and busy public areas.
Over the past eight days at least three people – two from the Lagoa area and one from Vila do Bispo – have been the victims of a carefully crafted scheme designed to distract unsuspecting targets while their handbag is snatched from under their noses. A fourth victim from Almancil had her handbag ripped from her very person after being accosted by a vehicle in a ‘snatch-and-drive’ hit in Olhos d’Água, Albufeira. George Pryce, who has lived in the Algarve for 12 years, was the first victim to be duped to tell The Portugal News of the incident. Mr. Pryce explained how last Thursday morning he had “popped into a local flower shop” in Lagoa. Carrying his pouch in his hand, he walked the few streets from where he had parked his car, within sight of the local Town Hall and police station, to the flower shop and back. “I’d decided to lay the flowers on the backseat of my car so I put my pouch there too”, he recounted, elaborating: “As I was arranging the flowers on the seat a car pulled up alongside me. The driver asked for directions. He spoke good but broken English”. The driver, who was accompanied by a female passenger, got out a map and asked Mr. Pryce to trace the directions on it. A few minutes later, after being informed, the couple drove off. As Mr. Price went to sit behind the wheel of his vehicle he noticed his pouch was no longer on the backseat. “I suspect that a third person took it as I was engrossed giving directions to the couple in the car. They must have picked that person up afterwards” he told The Portugal News, warning, “They definitely knew what they were doing”. He added “The exact same thing happened to my wife four or five years ago in the car park of an E.Leclerc supermarket”. “Within minutes” Mr. Pryce had reported the incident to the police and cancelled his bank cards, though failed to notice any detail about the vehicle: “You don’t even think of taking notice while you’re giving directions”, he reasoned. A few hours later Mr. Pryce’s wife received a call from the FIESA sand exhibition in Pêra, saying the pouch had been found, after apparently being dumped there. After retrieving it, Mr. Pryce verified “all my bank cards and money had gone”. Days later, sales representative Angela Bell was the victim of an identical incident, which took place on Monday this week, in the car park of an Intermarché supermarket, in Carvoeiro, Lagoa. “I often stop in that car park to make business calls”, she explained. “I don’t have air conditioning in my car so both my front windows were open. I had my handbag and laptop on the passenger seat”. Mrs. Bell recounted “A car pulled up behind mine. There was a young couple in the front, a blond girl and a young man; they beckoned for me to give them directions”. “They spoke a mix of English with Portuguese and Spanish”. Mrs. Bell explained how she stood with her back to the driver’s door of her vehicle as the couple “got out a map” and asked her to point out directions. “They said they wanted to avoid toll gates”. “I watched as they drove off and thought it was a bit strange as they seemed to saunter round the car park as opposed to rushing off before they forgot the directions, as you would expect”, Mrs. Bell told The Portugal News. Despite both the handbag and the laptop still being on the passenger seat, after picking up her handbag, Mrs. Bell felt that it was noticeably lighter. Upon further inspection, she verified that her purse was missing. Thinking she may have misplaced it she searched inside the car, then “It dawned on me that the purse had probably been stolen”. Like Mr. Pryce, Mrs. Bell also failed to notice the car’s licence plate. “It all happened so fast, it couldn’t have been more then two or three minutes; I didn’t hear or suspect anything”. She did however manage to describe the opportunists’ vehicle to police: “It was dark grey; like a Toyota”. The third scam took place on Wednesday this week, when a resident from Parque da Floresta, Vila do Bispo, was approached by the same couple “in a dark grey Renault” in the car park of the local Lidl supermarket. Genesis Lawson told The Portugal News that, as with the other incidents, “They approached me and asked for directions to Lisbon. They had done the same thing on Monday, but that time my husband was in the car”. “I asked if they were still lost”, she joked. Turning round Mrs. Lawson noticed a “man with his hand on my car door handle. He said he was waiting for my parking space”. She described the man, who subsequently walked away from the vehicle and round the back of the supermarket, as “five-foot-six, normal looking, in his mid-to-late forties”. Describing the couple, Mrs. Lawson said, “They were such as lovely couple; clean-cut, smiling, like honeymooners”. The GNR was informed of the occurrence. A fourth incident occurred two weeks ago, in which a long-term Algarve resident, who wishes to remain anonymous, was left physically injured and emotionally “traumatised”. The incident occurred in Olhos D’Água, at 22h30, on a busy main street popular with holidaying families. The woman and a female friend had been out enjoying an evening coffee when, as they approached their car, a second vehicle pulled up from behind them and yanked the victim’s handbag from her shoulder, dragging her backwards as the car sped off. “Until then it had been a really lovely, balmy evening”, she explained, adding that the street was “very, very busy”. “Then I don’t know what happened, something hit me, it was so fast and so close, really very professional. There was no noise from the car”, she recalled. Following the incident, the woman, who’s husband sadly passed away last October after being diagnosed with cancer, says she has been seriously “knocked backed” and left “really traumatised; incredibly so”. “I have always been so cautious; because when you are on your own you have to be able to look after yourself. I just dropped my guard for five seconds”. Describing the moment the assailants in the “dark green Opel Corsa” accosted her as “perfect and practised”, the victim likened her assault to that of “a rag doll being dragged backwards”. The victim, however, highly praised the passers-by and police who helped her following the ordeal. A nearby busker who witnessed the incident apparently “threw his guitar on the ground and chased the vehicle”, as another man “used his own mobile phone and rang a number for me to cancel my bank cards. They were cancelled within 10 minutes”. With “fantastic” assistance from all parties involved, less than forty-eight hours later all of the victim’s personal documents, including her health and residency cards, mobile phone and bank cards, had been replaced. “The police were lovely” she continued, highlighting the “fantastic assistance from the legal medical examiner” before concluding: “There were two bad guys in that car but there are still a lot of good people out there”. Carrie-Marie Bratley
Edition: 1070 |
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