Nerves of steal

For any parent or grandparent it made difficult viewing. But there on primetime BBC TV, a documentary called Gypsy Child Thieves revealed how Romanian Romany migrants are involved in profitable street crime across Europe by sending their children out to rob cashpoints and the pockets of passers by.

From Madrid to Milan to London, European cities have experienced a surge of street crime since the accession of Eastern European countries to the European Union in 2007. Much of it – pick pocketing, theft from bags, stealing from cash machines – is carried out by Romani Gypsy children from Romania. Last night, Gypsy Child Thieves showed the adults who force the children on to the streets to beg and steal and the increasing evidence of Gypsy organised crime, trafficking children around Europe.

Romanian film maker Liviu Tipurita, filmed in Spain and in Italy, where Gypsy crime has hit the headlines and where the right-wing government has introduced draconian measures to target Gypsies. The film charted how child crime has become increasingly common within the community. Secret footage showed just how hard kids must work to earn their adult controllers many thousands of pounds.

In Madrid police say that 95% of the children under 14 who they pick up are Romanian Gypsies. Their crime of choice is robbing people as they withdraw money from cash machines. Liviu filmed covertly as children as young as ten, who appeared well trained in distraction techniques, fearlessly targeted people withdrawing money. It often took several bystanders to force them off.

In a squalid, rat infested camp outside Madrid, 13-year-old Daniela explains that how the police are powerless to stop them: “When you steal, you can make 300 in one go. It’s only the police that catch us, they take the money we have on us, they take us to the day centre, and the centre lets us go.” Girl thieves like Daniela can be sold into marriage for as much as 25,000 Euros.

In Milan, Italian police launched a major investigation following an explosion of pick pocketing and theft at the city’s central station. The operation, involving covert surveillance and phone tapping, revealed a sophisticated international organisation that shipped hundreds of thousands of euros stolen by children on the streets to criminal gangsters back in Romania. A police raid discovered 15 children locked in a shed, and resulted in the conviction of 25 adults for their enslavement and exploitation. However, This World discovered that some of the children taken into care during the operation have escaped and are once again stealing on the streets of Milan under the control of adults.

At the end of his journey, Tipurita travelled to Romania where the majority of Roma Gypsies live in abject poverty. They have been the victims of racism for centuries and live outside mainstream society. Organised crime exploits the desperation and poverty that blights the community.

However even a senior figure in the Gypsy underworld, interviewed for the programme, believes that the stealing has gone too far. Revealing the fabulous mansions and expensive cars that have been bought with the proceeds of crime abroad, Breliant believes that the current level of crime could lead to further problems for the Romani Gypsies: “Our country won’t understand us any longer, the Western countries will chase us away. And then I ask myself… where are we going to go? Where will we live?”

But was the film courageous journalism exposing a side of the Gypsy community we’d rather not talk, about or just more sensational Gypsy bashing from the BBC. Watch for yourself on the BBC Iplayerand comment below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00mkjyd/This_World_Gypsy_Child_Thieves/