Barcelona police arrested over 21,000 people in 2024—nearly 80% of them foreign nationals, according to an official report obtained by the conservative VOX party.
The report, issued by Catalonia’s regional directorate of police, showed the city’s police arrested a total of 21,808 people last year, of which 17,158—amounting to 78.7%—were foreign nationals. VOX politicians on the city council managed to obtain the document following a public information request.
The largest number of arrests was for theft, with 5,442 cases, 4,942 of which (91%) involved foreigners. Violent robberies saw 3,595 foreign detainees compared to 709 Spaniards, representing 83.5%. In sexual assault cases, 344 of the 471 arrests (73%) were foreign nationals. Drug trafficking yielded 1,457 foreign arrests out of 1,965 (74.2%), and in homicides and murders, 42 of the 71 suspects arrested were foreigners (59.1%).
Even in the catch-all category of “other crimes,” the share of foreign nationals remained high: 6,778 of the 9,555 arrests, or 70.9%. Vox further highlighted that in cases involving illegal occupation of property (often called squatting), 87.5% of the suspects arrested were foreign nationals, although this specific figure was not numerically broken down in the report.
Gonzalo de Oro Pulido, VOX’s spokesperson on Barcelona city council, accused local and regional authorities of covering up these statistics and promoting policies that, in his words, have made Barcelona “a paradise for criminals and a nightmare for law-abiding citizens.”
VOX plans to introduce a motion at the next city council meeting demanding the regular release of crime data broken down by nationality and type of offense. The party is also calling for a greater police presence, the immediate expulsion of foreign repeat offenders, and the termination of subsidies to organizations that allegedly promote illegal immigration or are linked to criminal activity.
Although these figures pertain specifically to Barcelona, they are part of a broader national context. In 2024, several Spanish cities saw rising crime rates. In Málaga, conventional crime rose by 10.9%, while Zaragoza saw a 7.8% increase, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior and various official sources.
Multiple studies and reports over recent years have noted a correlation between uncontrolled immigration and increases in specific types of crimes. While not all migrants commit crimes, the data reveal a disproportionate representation of foreign nationals in violent, sexual, and property-related crime statistics, fuelling the ongoing debate about the need to reform immigration and public safety policies in Spain and Europe.