Spain's Ibiza to hire foreign Covid detectives to sniff out illegal parties
Spain's party island of Ibiza plans to hire private detectives who can pass as tourists to help local authorities find out where illegal parties that breach Covid restrictions will be held.
The Balearic island's famous nightclubs, which attract DJs from around the world, are shut due to the pandemic. This in turn has led to a boom in private parties as Covid-19 infections surge on the island.
But Ibiza's local government has come up with a cunning solution.
They're looking for detectives aged 30 to 40 to go undercover, "find the parties before they start" and tip off police, said the spokesman for the government of Ibiza, Armando Tur.
The illegal parties are often held in homes in the countryside to try to evade detection and can draw over 500 people, the spokesman said.
They are organised by "mafias" which sometimes charge €100 ($120) per person to enter and look for clients on social media or outside of bars, he added.
Ibiza has already received several applications from across Europe but it is only interested in hiring professional detectives, Tur said.
The Balearic Islands, which include Ibiza, have one of Spain's highest Covid-19 infection rates, driven mainly by the more contagious Delta variant.
To try to curb the spread of the virus the regional government of the Balearics at the end of July banned all gatherings between people who do not live together between 1:00 am and 6:00 am.
A student trip in June to the island of Majorca, also part of the Balearics, resulted in a major Covid-19 outbreak that infected thousands of people across Spain.
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The Balearic island's famous nightclubs, which attract DJs from around the world, are shut due to the pandemic. This in turn has led to a boom in private parties as Covid-19 infections surge on the island.
But Ibiza's local government has come up with a cunning solution.
They're looking for detectives aged 30 to 40 to go undercover, "find the parties before they start" and tip off police, said the spokesman for the government of Ibiza, Armando Tur.
The illegal parties are often held in homes in the countryside to try to evade detection and can draw over 500 people, the spokesman said.
They are organised by "mafias" which sometimes charge €100 ($120) per person to enter and look for clients on social media or outside of bars, he added.
Ibiza has already received several applications from across Europe but it is only interested in hiring professional detectives, Tur said.
The Balearic Islands, which include Ibiza, have one of Spain's highest Covid-19 infection rates, driven mainly by the more contagious Delta variant.
To try to curb the spread of the virus the regional government of the Balearics at the end of July banned all gatherings between people who do not live together between 1:00 am and 6:00 am.
A student trip in June to the island of Majorca, also part of the Balearics, resulted in a major Covid-19 outbreak that infected thousands of people across Spain.
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