Here they come

Guiris. According to Kalebeul, roughly one in five of them will get robbed.

I found this page, chock-full of first hand accounts of robberies and known scams in Barcelona.

There's an extremely creative one which I'll call the Pigeon Crap Con.

As I was walking with my parents along an escalator near the Olympic Stadium, a man either spit or threw lotion on my jacket. He tried to tell me in broken english that a pigeon had crapped on me. The man had a kleenex tissue and kindly offered to clean it off. I knew this was a scam and I told him in spanish to keep his distance. I knew that if I took off my jacket, he would reach into my pockets and steal my wallet. He, like the Gitana, was again shocked and surprised and quickly left just as two Guardia Civil officers drove by. I informed them of what happened, but by this time the man was long gone. I was very upset that this happened, especially while my parents were visiting. It seems like these predators were targeting tourists, and unfortunately were having great success.

It really perplexes me. The amount of time and energy spent thinking up these cons. Not to mention actually pulling them off. Couldn't that energy be funneled differently? Something a little less ... illegal?