The images look like those from an apocalyptic film. Mud covers the avenue of the Catholic Kings of Alfafar, there are overturned cars and the walls of warehouses and shops have collapsed, devastated by the DANA which caused a tsunami urban in Valencia. On the horizon, we see a column of smoke coming from a fire and while the firefighters work, a group of people organized like ants, fill carts with all kinds of products, to steal with impunity in broad daylight.
[Imágenes de la DANA en Valencia, Albacete y Andalucía: inundaciones, rescates, coches atrapados…]
They begin to proliferate looting amid tragedy. Some to earn money, in the case of friends of others, and others, motivated by the closure of businesses in the towns of the Horta region most affected by DANA and which remain incommunicado, even with cuts in basic supplies. like water and electricity.
This is demonstrated by this message from an internal chat accessed by EL ESPAÑOL and where a member of the Civil Guard recounts the following scene he witnessed in Paiporta: the zero point of the disaster where 45 people were counted of the 92 deaths in Valencia. . “There are people with carts with ten hams while the corpses are coveredothers left with cars full of perfume… There were also people who only took water and basic food because they were desperate.”
“But I already told you, at Consum de Paiporta, at Mercadona and in the rest of the supermarkets in Paiporta, it was an open barand not one or two people, it was people who came in with carts and took them out full, as if they were making the purchase of the month. They devastated everything. But you have to prioritize, because if you want to eliminate the trapped people [por la DANA], you can’t stop stopping the scoundrels. You explain the Abbreviated Penal Code to them and move on to the next thing that is most urgent. [buscar supervivientes].
Such a message shows that the security forces and bodies are beginning to be overwhelmed by the worst DANA in the history of Valencia. The proof is this audio from a National Police agent stationed in the capital of Turia, to which this newspaper also had access: “Some colleagues We start to wonder where the army is: there is looting in Paiporta, Benetúser and Alfafar. “You start to feel insecure where you work.”
A video of looting in a Consum and a Carrefour in Alfafar broadcast by TikTok.
Looting also extended from fruit towns to Valencia. Indeed, this Wednesday afternoon, in the district of La Torre, south of the capital of Turia, a Local Police officer requested reinforcements, graphically exposing the situation in a police WhatsApp group: “In La Torre they loot like in scenes from third world countries. In supermarkets, they bring out carts full to the brim. » But not only that, since a Civil Guard agent assures that they “even break the ATMs” of the banks in the aforementioned district.
Members of the National Police and the Civil Guard claim that there has already been damage in a jewelry store in Paiporta; to a Carrefour warehouse in Alfafar; A Consum supermarket was emptied. In addition, theft attempts failed at two stores of the Economy Cash chain and at a company in the Chiva industrial zone.
The generators that kept Alcampo’s cameras active prevented him from being attacked by a suspected thief who recounts the act on TikTok, while his friend brags about the situation, showing a refrigerator they borrowed: “Don’t want the cheap refrigerator for home? It’s 389 euros, but I’ll let you have it cheap: 50 euros. After the Holocaust, water tasted better. Wherever you say, we start “cleaning”. “Does this attraction fit in your garden?”
“An Evening of Purge”
This Wednesday evening, through social networks, residents of the municipalities of the Comarca de l’Horta, who still did not have an energy supply to light their streets, directly warned that they faced “a night of purge” against criminals.
“It was starting to feel a very strange atmosphere and looting, bonfires started to be seen…“, as detailed by the National Police stationed in Valencia. “Thanks to Benetúser, they went at full speed to steal, but not only water and food, which again tells you: ‘well, that might be logical.’ In Paiporta, they took clothes and jewelry: they went on a rampage there.”
Neighbors blame a group of people for stealing in the middle of DANA.
The situation is so worrying that EL ESPAÑOL has learned that it is agents of special operational groups deploy of the Civil Guard and the National Police, experts in restoring security in rural areas, suppressing demonstrations or intervening in operations against drug trafficking organizations.
“The GRS agents were mobilized [Grupo de Reserva y Seguridad] and USECIC [Unidad de Seguridad Ciudadana] of the Civil Guard, in addition to members of the UPR [Unidad de Prevención y Reacción] and GOR [Grupo Operativo de Respuesta] of the National Police”, as illustrated by an agent of the Army Institute deployed in the “ground zero” of the DANA. “They deploy them in Alfafar, Paiporta and in the towns near the Valencia ring road: the V-30 . “
Wednesday evening, Permanent security checks deployed to prevent looting in Valencia shopping centersfaced with the possibility that organized groups equipped with all-terrain vehicles, capable of moving through mud and areas flooded by water, will attempt to rob stores to seize juicy loot of cell phones, jewelry …
One of these spaces guarded by security forces is the Bonaire shopping center located in Aldaya and which is one of the targets of thieves, since it is the largest in the Valencian community and the water has flooded it. There was also a checkpoint at the MN4 leisure center in Alfafar where 250 people were trapped by DANA.
For now, heto the Civil Guard and the National Police 16 people were arrested for looting stores in several municipalities of the Comarca de l’Horta. “People die and the police, the Civil Guard, the firefighters and the Military Emergency Unit, save the people, and what is usual, the bad guys who cannot even be repaired: they take advantage of the misfortune”, reflects a Valencian agent. “Evil never rests.”
