Con Artists and Luggage Theft on Mallorca

Suitcase and luggage gone — what now?

The plane begins its descent, the sun dazzles through the cabin window and you are already looking forward to the holiday ahead. In the giddy rush of summer and warm sunshine, the worst imaginable then suddenly happens: your suitcase has vanished without a trace. Around 50 to 60 holidaymakers face a similar start to their trip at Sant Joan airport on Mallorca during the high season. This Mediterranean holiday paradise offers paradise-like conditions to organised crime, too. Tourists and sun-seekers often seem particularly careless with their luggage. Each year Palma de Mallorca airport counts around 20 million travellers, an enormous number of potential passengers who could fall victim to theft or be taken in by a con artist.

At Playa de Palma, alcohol and the overconfidence that comes with it repeatedly tempt tourists, despite countless warnings, into falling for card sharps, the shell game and other games of chance.

Con artists on Mallorca are found not only on the beach, however, but also on the golf courses and in the island's beach clubs. There, though, no shell games are used to fleece people; in this league the escritura (title deed) of an overpriced property serves as the bait, used to relieve a wealthy, unsuspecting investor of a few million over champagne and caviar.