Thief Episode

Yesterday, I was in Wiesbaden...in the shopping district.  I was about to head up an escalator to one of the mini-malls in the inner-city.  Coming down the escalator was a guy (mid-20s, obviously not a German) and being chased.  The second guy (the chaser) got a arm gripe on the guy at the escalator point and they fell backwards, and then behind them came the third guy.....a store detective.

So I stood and observed.

A bunch of chatter occurred.....mostly in Turkish (from the store detective) and some type of Arabic (from the younger guy).  Whatever the younger guy had grabbed....he's handed off at some point in the chase (upstairs), so they didn't have evidence.  This is normally the strategy for the front guy of a chase to avoid having evidence and being arrested/detained. 

So there's some yelling going on.  The young guy wanted to be released.  The older detective wanted an ID.  The younger apprentice detective held the thief in a locked position.

So finally the thief pulled out a billfold and produced his 'ID'.  Well....that's the thing....he had no 'ID'.  What he had was a piece of paper which is stamped and issued by the Auslander Office (the immigration folks) when you've arrived and have no passport or real 'ID'. 

My wife (the German) was standing there with me and just got huffy.  This is part of the internal German frustration with the migration situation.   

At this point, the store detective is writing down the guy's name and ID number.  He's telling the young punk that he is forbidden from entry into the store.  There had to be at least forty people standing there and watching this whole thing take place. 

The sad thing here is that the guy probably got out with some item valued at 300 Euro.  His buddy is taking the item onto the apartment and they have some middle-guy who will purchase the item for probably 100 Euro.  That guy will show up at some flea-market and sell it for around 200 Euro. 

How often does this occur?  Two years in Karstadt (the big store in town) I saw a 15-year-old kid make the run out of the store with a high-value perfume box.  This year, I've probably observed two chases with store detectives.  I'd take a guess that just out of this electronics shop (3rd floor), there's at least one chase every single day. 

At some point, I think that the stores will eventually get tough and have some kind of airport security gate erected where you have to pass through two gates to get out, and the chase business will officially end.  The sad thing is that you are making it tough on 'real' customers. 

This 'snatch and go' business?  It's now basically all non-German.  It's all young males....sometimes even getting into the younger teens.  Germans observing this?  They all grumble, and feel frustrated.  Why the thief episode?  Well....once you arrive and get into some immigration 'hall' or compound, the German government is only going to give you enough money for welfare living, and you won't get the work-card until you reach some visa-stage.  So to supplement your welfare situation, you rob Germans or sell drugs to Germans.  The system, frankly, is screwed up.