Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) will file a criminal complaint this Tuesday against the 62 graffiti artists who attacked the facilities of L5 of the Barcelona metro this past morning.
Specifically, the vandals have entered the Vall d'Hebron station, damaging the door, the validation barrier and the security cameras until they have accessed the platform where they have attacked a metro security guard and painted four trains, as well as different station facilities. Finally, the joint intervention of the Mossos d'Esquadra and the metro security guards has ended with 14 detainees. It is the largest attack by graffiti vandals in the history of TMB in terms of painted people and trains.
The attack affected the service as a result of the four painted trains that were removed, thus increasing the waiting time for users. Furthermore, after preliminary damage assessments, it is estimated that the approximate cost will exceed 50,000 euros.
The president of TMB, Laia Bonet, has harshly condemned this attack, stating that “these actions of vandalism endanger the physical integrity of the metro security guards, while creating serious harm 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.
TMB fights against graffiti vandalism and with a series of new measures has managed to reduce by half the number of square meters painted and the economic cost during the first half of the year compared to 2022, despite the number of intrusion attempts and graffiti vandalism continues.
In this sense, TMB recalls that railway vandalism is an organized criminal activity that ends up having great harm to workers, causes significant economic expense and impacts the users themselves, while eventually forcing the provision of a service to stop. essential.
