The National Police have arrested four male Spanish and Senegalese teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19 years old, after they intimidated and robbed a tourist outside a club in Veronicas, in Playa las Americas, on Saturday night.
According to the victim’s statement, a 19-year-old Dutch tourist, he was approached by a group of ten people when he went outside a club on the ‘strip’ for a cigarette, who initially asked him if he wanted to buy drugs (cocaine and marijuana), which he refused.
From that moment they began to intimidate him, surrounding him and preventing him from leaving and going back inside where his friends were. At this point, they opened the bum bag he was wearing and took his mobile phone, a credit card, and cash, before ripping off the necklace he was wearing around his neck, and then pushed him to the floor before they walked off laughing.
A security guard nearby saw what was happening and went over to help the victim, who was visibly upset and called the National Police who immediately went to the scene.
After gathering information from the victim and eyewitnesses, radio support was requested and raids began on clubs in the area, and four of the perpetrators, two of Spanish males aged 19 and 16 and two Senegalese aged 19, were found and identified by both the victim and witnesses.
During a body search, they found them in possession of the items that the Dutchman said had been stolen, so they were arrested and taken to the station to be charged. None of the four had prior arrests, and one of the Senegalese men is in an ‘irregular administrative situation’ having arrived on the island on a boat from west Africa.
