Barcelona Metropolitan Transport (TMB)) has announced a criminal complaint against the 62 graffiti artists who attacked the facilities of the L5 of the Barcelona metro.
Specifically, the offenders have entered the station Vall Hebron “damaging the door, the validation barrier and the security cameras until they accessed the platform where they attacked a metro security guard and painted four trains, as well as different station facilities,” according to TMB.
The joint intervention of the Mossos d’Esquadra and the metro security guards have put an end to 14 arrested. From TMB they classify the act as “the biggest attack by graffiti vandals in the history of TMB as for people and painted trains.
The attack affected the service as a result of the four painted trains that were removed, thus increasing the waiting time of users. Additionally, after preliminary damage assessments, it is estimated that the approximate cost will exceed 50,000 euros.
Danger to physical integrity
The president of TMBLaia Bonet, has harshly condemned this attack, stating that “these actions of vandalism endanger the physical integrity of the subway security guards, while creating a serious damage “to citizens, degrading an essential service such as public transport and generating a totally unjustified cost of public money.”
“We cannot allow this type of attacks to occur and that is why at TMB we will act with the utmost forcefulness and determination, using all the tools at our disposal, to prevent situations like these from happening again,” Bonet assured. The president of TMB also wanted to thank the metro security guards and the Mossos d’Esquadra for their intervention in tonight’s attack.
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TMB claims to make “a significant effort” daily to fight against graffiti vandalism and with a series of new measures it has managed to reduce the number of square meters painted and the economic cost by half during the first half of the year compared to 2022, to Despite the number of intrusion attempts and graffiti vandalism, they continue.
In this sense, TMB remembers that the railway vandalism It is an organized criminal activity that ends up having great harm to workers, causes significant economic expenditure and impacts the users themselves, while eventually forcing the provision of an essential service to stop.