Mossos d'Esquadra, the Catalan regional police, have intensified action against repeat offending in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat with a joint operation around Gran Via 2 involving the city’s Guàrdia Urbana, the local police, and Spain’s Policía Nacional. According to the reported police results, the deployment ended with more than 50 arrests, including one person detained for breaching immigration law.

For residents and shoppers in the Gran Via 2 area, the immediate consequence is a heavier police presence on surrounding streets and transport routes as officers target robbery, weapons, drugs and outstanding warrants. The operation forms part of the wider Kanpai strategy, the name police use for high-visibility sweeps aimed at repeat offenders through street controls, identity checks, inspections and arrests.

According to police sources cited by ARA in an earlier Kanpai deployment in the south of the Barcelona area, the aim is to identify and arrest repeat offenders in concentrated operations lasting several hours.

What police say Kanpai operations involve

The wider model for these deployments has been set out in earlier operations across Barcelona and nearby municipalities. In one seven-hour Kanpai operation reported by ARA, officers worked from 4 pm to 11 pm in L'Hospitalet, Esplugues, Cornellà and the southern part of Barcelona, identifying 1,635 people and arresting 30. Police sources told ARA that officers also opened 70 cases for weapons, drugs or disrespect towards officers, recovered four stolen motorbikes and seized three scooters.

That same operation was heaviest in L'Hospitalet, where officers identified 662 people with 1,420 previous records, checked 72 vehicles, inspected four bars and made 15 arrests. Police also investigated two people there for driving without a licence and, in one inspection, stopped an illegal gambling operation and seized €815 in cash.

Another Kanpai Limit deployment in Sant Martí, near the Sant Adrià del Besòs boundary, involved about 80 officers from the Mossos, Policía Nacional, Guàrdia Urbana and Sant Adrià local police. El Periódico reported that operation ended with four arrests, including three people who together had 102 previous records and were held for breaching immigration law. Officers there identified 150 people who, according to the report, accumulated 1,182 previous arrests.

L'Hospitalet focus includes scooter-enabled robbery

Reporting from ElCaso says the latest pressure in L'Hospitalet is also aimed at violent thieves using electric scooters to snatch belongings from pedestrians at speed. That report says half of all robberies reported in L'Hospitalet are committed from electric scooters, although that figure was attributed to the outlet’s own information rather than a published police dataset.

ElCaso also reported that local officers have recently seized scooters capable of reaching 114 km/h, well above the legal limit of 25 km/h for these personal mobility vehicles, and detected others with altered displays that showed lower speeds than the vehicles could actually reach. The report said the objective was to "pacify" the neighbourhoods where these offences are concentrated and improve residents’ sense of safety.

The units named in that L'Hospitalet deployment included the Mossos' public safety officers from the local station, the urban crime group, ARRO public order officers, the motorbike unit known as Guilles, and the regional urban transport unit, alongside municipal police and Policía Nacional officers.

How residents can report crime

Anyone who needs to report an immediate threat or a crime in progress should call 112, the emergency number used across Catalonia. For non-urgent incidents in L'Hospitalet, residents can also report them in person to the Mossos d'Esquadra or the Guàrdia Urbana de L'Hospitalet, especially if the case involves robbery, a stolen vehicle, assault or suspicious scooter use in streets near shopping areas and public transport.

  • Emergency or crime in progress: call 112
  • Non-urgent report: attend a Mossos d'Esquadra or Guàrdia Urbana police station
  • Useful details to provide: exact street, time, description of the suspect, vehicle or scooter used, and any injuries or stolen items

Police have not published a fuller official breakdown of the latest Gran Via 2 operation in the supplied source material, including the exact number of people identified, the hours of the deployment or the specific offences behind each arrest. What has been reported is that the operation was part of the same policing strategy already used in L'Hospitalet and other parts of the Barcelona metropolitan area.

Reported by Source Text Link, Orsolya Gazdagi, Natàlia Vila, Redacción, Germán González, El Llobregat, europapress.es, El País, Mark Nolan, Silvana Antonelli, Edu Gil, Mossos d'Esquadra, Cesc Maideu, Miriam Saint-Germain, Metrópoli Abierta - Urban Life.