Blocus Riots: Mossos Trace WhatsApp Chat That Targeted Luxury Shops
Police reports show how a WhatsApp group set up before the Oct. 24 Barcelona riots steered people toward looting jewelers. What the Blocus probe found so far.
Four days before the Oct. 24 riots in Barcelona, a WhatsApp group called “Joyería BCN 24 octubre” was already active, with a photo of a jewelry shop on the Diagonal as its picture. Police reports seen by ElNacional.cat show how people inside the open Blocus protest call used it to recruit others to loot luxury stores.
The reports come from the Comissaria General d’Informació (the intelligence unit) of the Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalonia’s police), whose officers gained access to the chats and messages shared before, during and after the unrest.
From a TikTok poster to a looting chat
The trail began with a poster spread on several TikTok profiles and later shared on Instagram and Twitter. It called young people to an unauthorized demonstration and carried a QR code leading to a WhatsApp community. One group there, named “General,” was created on Oct. 20 and had 87 members when the Mossos started reviewing it. Officers studied four days of conversation. Alongside messages about what time to arrive in Barcelona and references to riots in France, they found the first exchanges about which shops to hit.
Investigators documented the link between the two chats at midday on Oct. 23. In the general group, one participant asked whether they would go to Rolex or Apple first. Another replied that a jewelry shop would already have watches, and minutes later shared the link to the jewelry chat, which then had 69 members. According to the reports, anyone who had seen the poster could join the general group, and members then pointed those interested in looting toward a chat where targets were discussed openly.
Officers sorted the messages by user and compared what the same number wrote in each group. That let them separate people who suggested shops, those who spread links and those who carried instructions from one chat to the other. Members of the jewelry chat argued over targets: some wanted sportswear or electronics, others preferred jewelry. A message forwarded from another group asked people to leave small shops, residents’ cars, ambulances and firefighters alone.
A 17-year-old at the center of the reports
One profile the Mossos followed across both chats belongs to a 17-year-old. He shared the link to the jewelry group and, once there, urged others to take part. After midnight on Oct. 24 he wrote that even his mother had asked him for a bag, said he could hide stolen items for a few days, and argued that gold rings were worth more than shoeboxes. Someone in the group also posted a photo of an already looted shop during the riots.
That afternoon he warned the group that police were asking for ID. Investigators matched this with a record from outside the chat: that same afternoon a patrol had identified him at the scene. The Mossos arrested him five days later in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia. The police file describes his role in the call but does not name him as the person who carried out any specific theft. He is now in a juvenile center. He wrote that he was in Plaça de Catalunya, but his involvement in the looting has not been proven, and police found nothing stolen that day when they searched his home. His lawyer has asked the Fiscalía de Menores (juvenile prosecutor’s office) to investigate “the origin” of the call and to ask the platform for explanations.
What it means for the Blocus investigation
According to the tally in the reports, the riots left 135 arrests, 23 shops looted and 33 barricades set on fire. The looted shops included computer and clothing stores and jewelers, among them one near La Boqueria whose owners reported losing more than thirty thousand euros in goods. On a Telegram channel that grew to more than sixteen hundred members, officers found posts from users showing off items they said they had stolen that afternoon. The Mossos saved the content before Telegram shut the channel on Oct. 26.
Following the chats has led to several arrests. Police still have to establish which of the plans discussed were carried out, and by whom. Those detained face charges of public disorder and belonging to a criminal group, and in some cases criminal organization, a charge that requires a structure investigators have not yet shown. Only one suspect, Ayeez A.A., 20, a Spanish national of Pakistani origin arrested on Oct. 30 in the Horta area of Valencia, calls himself the leader of Blocus Bcn.
A case split across courts
No investigating court in Barcelona has taken over the whole Blocus case, which is spread across several courts. The Mossos, the Guardia Civil and the Policía Nacional are working on it, along with Barcelona’s cybercrime prosecutor, Roberto Valverde. Because of the number of arrests, the case could be split in two: one for the looting and damage in central Barcelona, another for Blocus activity online. About ten people accused of promoting Blocus face stricter measures, including pretrial detention and closed juvenile centers, than those arrested on the street during the riots.
Source: go.eln.cat
