I just returned from Madrid yesterday, I was there with my wife for 8 days for what I hoped would be a nice holiday and to visit my cousins. I am sorry to say that the city has most unfortunately become a dangerous destination. At Barajas, I ran into a couple who are friends from Miami, we exchanged travel plans and phone numbers. Upon ariving at my hotel, I received an urgent call from one my friends, it so happens he and his wife had all of their credit cards, cash, cell phone, i.d's and passport stolen at the airport and they were on their way to the American Embassy. Five or ten minutes later, we met up with another couple, who were staying at our hotel, who had arrived the day before, and they told us a similar story however this one included the theft of their toiletries and medications. These events happened December 26th and 27th. On January 1st, my wife and I took a leisurely walk down the Paseo del Prado to the Ritz Hotel, it was such a beautiful day. We stopped to rest on a bench between the Ritz and the Embassy of New Zealand when out of nowhere and Arab man approaches us and flashes in our faces what seemed to be a police badge and about 10 feet away behind us was another man in a new white Renault automobile, Madrid tag 9459 TZ. The man with the badge proceeded to ask us for our "documents" in a heavily-accented Spanish. We both speak perfect Spanish told him we did not have any with us, (as we were not carrying anything given our friends' experiences). He repeatedly told us that it is illegal in Spain to be without "travel documents" and that we had to come to the car with him as if to "arrest" us for breaking the law. We engaged him in conversation asking who he was and insisted to see the badge again, he asked where we came from and the dialogue kept going on and on. Finally my wife and I both stood up and refused to follow his orders. When the Arab man saw that we were both much taller than him he slowly walked towards the waiting car all the while insisting we come with him. He got in the car and they quickly drove away. The 2 men were young, clean-shaven, well dressed and driving a new vehicle. We then informed the authorities. It was not a pleasant experience. PLEASE BE CAREFUL, MADRID IS NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE!!! esq.

I'm little confused...Is it common for the Spanish Police to ask for travel documents in the first place?

If it is, then no wonder those perverts were trying to take advantage....Why would they have picked you out of everyone else? or maybe you were the only ones around and they wanted to see if they could intimidate the !%*! out of you.

It's good that you didn't let on or who knows what could have happened...

Another suggestion would be to call the "real police"....and intimate the !%*! out of them

I'm very sorry you had to experience that in my city

Policemen in Spain are spaniards, not arabs or southamericans. The reason is that to occupy a public job you must have spanish citizenship, and so far not many inmigrants have it. Anyway, spanish policemen do not go here and there asking for traveling documents. They could as as much as for an identification document.

What these fake policemen wanted was your purse to take your money; or your passport in order to ask you for money in exchange for it.

If you ever suspect of a policeman call real policemen at 112 or ask someone else's help (a pedestrian in the nearby). In 112 they will speak english (probably) and a good number of spaniards speak english too. If they see your determination to call for the real policemen they will run away for sure.

Anyway, this is very sad

Fernando

I hope you reported this incident to the Police as an extortion attempt. They don't look very favorably on that sort of thing. The Matricula of the vehicle could have been very helpful to them.

esq,

Yup, that's just about what happened to my wife and I in October 2002. I even posted the incident here. Unfortunately, not speaking Spanish, it didn't go quite as well for us and I had some money stolen. I, like you, didn't hand over any identification when asked for it, although it was on my body.
Because of this incident, and one that occured two days later, I have lost a lot of my enthusiasm for Spain. To me, it was just teeming with crime of this nature.
Ninas, Fernando, Eddie, I went to the police and reported it. A fat lot of good that did. I'd never expect to retrieve what I loss, but I thought it might put my friends out of business. Obviously not. I still have my deposition paper.
If you read his post carefully, esq did go to the police, and it looks like he enjoyed the experience as much as I did. I did learn that the Madrid police are overworked though!

These sound like the same guys we keep hearing about. They approached me last summer and tried the same scam, different plates. I basically told them to F off and that I was going to report them to the police (which I did). For someone used to Spain it is an obvious scam, but can be a real problem for those who don't speak Spanish. Basic advice to everyone is that if you have doubts about the legitmacy of a request, find the nearest uniformed officer. Do not under any circumstances should you get in their car!

Esq, thank you for sharing this information with us. Forewarned is forearmed! I am sorry that this is happening in Madrid. And in December too! Imagine if your wife was alone, thank goodness you were there! I am sorry, too for your friends who lost their money and documentation!

This type of scam can be intimidating and even more frustrating if you don't know the language,you are right about that, Gazpacho.

Eddie, great idea, but as an older woman, I would be a bit afraid to take their Matricula. What if they are armed, or would want to hurt me!

Didn't I read that in Madrid Centro and in places where tourists abounded that they were going to install security cameras to scare off these types of predators? Maybe it was my imagination.

What about the other parts of Spain, has anyone encountered problems in other provinces?

Booklady,

It was probably more like their imagination.

I have lived here in Madrid for 9 months and many of my friends have had wallets,purses,Cell Phones stolen by some very talented thieves. One friend had her purse tucked under her arm in a zipped up jacket and STILL had her wallett stolen while boarding the Metro. 3 weeks after arriving in Madrid, someone tried stealing my American VW Jetta out of the Parking lot of a Jardiland while we were buying Flowers for our Yard. My car had a Passive antitheft system which shut off the electrical system to the car when they drilled out the ignition but needless to say it took me 3 months to get it back on the road between getting American parts for it and a appointment at the local VW dealer. The Thieves are not normally violent here, but stealing is a very big way of life in the city here. When I go downtown, I have a diferent wallet I use that only has a ATM card, 1 ID, and a few Euros to get me by. If I get it picked, at least I won't lose everything.