National police issue warning to homeowners

Spain’s national police issued a stark warning this week via its social media channels, publishing an image of small strips of paper with the warning, “If you get home and find yourself at the door with any of these signals (plastic, paper, glue thread…) Don’t touch anything. Do not enter the house. Go to a safe place and call 091.”
The warning comes after police once again are concerned about gangs of robbers using small pieces of paper or strips of fragile glue to work out whether or not a property is inhabited.

Unfortunately, thieves and squatters are always devising new ways to gain access to homes, businesses and other establishments. Ideally, they want to enter a property when no one is there so that they can steal items or move in without being caught. A national police source said, “That means that law enforcement has to always follow their steps very closely to know their methods; methods such as the one that we shared and reported on social networks, and to which we should pay special attention.”

The reason people are being urged to be vigilant is that the method is very hard to detect with the naked eye. Thieves use small folded pieces of paper, lodged in a doorway, or fine silicone or glue threads for the same purpose. If the property owner is home, the paper will fall or the glue will break. If, when the criminals return to the property at a later stage, the paper or glue is still in place, they can confirm that no one is at home and that the property is unoccupied.

When the National Police posted the image (below) on its social media channels on Saturday, hundreds of users commented and some reported similar techniques being used by thieves. Several people reported finding small coins outside their door (the idea being that the coin would be swept out of place when the door opened) or plastic bottles placed there for the same reason.