St Julian’s was named the island’s theft capital yesterday, registering the highest number of robberies since 2009.

The tourist hotspot, which includes nightlife hub Paceville, had the highest number of home break-ins, armed robberies and muggings as well as pickpocket and snatch-and-grab cases.

There have been 241 burglaries in St Julian’s since 2009, followed by 217 in Sliema – well above the island’s average of 30.

Neighbouring Swieqi also saw a relatively high incidence of crime with 153 break-ins in the past five years.

Swieqi mayor Noel Muscat said the figures were worrying but hardly surprising.

He claimed the residential area was still at the mercy of the inebriated nightclub-goers who took to roaming the town’s streets after nightclubs closed their doors.

Mr Muscat pointed out that the Swieqi police station, officially inaugurated last February, remained closed.

People don’t feel safe in their own homes anymore

“Swieqi is a quiet family locality, but at the weekend it is completely transformed and people do not feel safe in their own homes anymore.

“What’s worse is that we don’t have any police presence so it gets out of hand.”

Swieqi forms part of the St Julian’s police precinct, which processes and handles all Swieqi reports. Mr Muscat, however, insisted the weekend surge of Paceville crime often left residents unprotected.

“How can they patrol our streets if they can barely keep up with their own problems?” he lamented.

An analysis by Times of Malta last year revealed that police officers in St Julian’s had to deal with approximately three times as many cases of theft, vandalism and bodily harm as their colleagues in Birkirkara.

Yesterday’s figures revealed a staggering 2,404 cases of pickpocketing as well as some 170 snatch-and-grab cases.

Nightclub managers had recently complained about the apparent lack of police resources in dealing with the rising tide of Paceville pickpockets.

The manager of a nightclub along a Paceville stairway said groups of coordinated pickpockets had turned the popular bottleneck into a “thief’s paradise”.

“It’s like a hunting ground for these thieves. Over the past year I’ve seen dozens of girls crying over stolen handbags and mobile phones. It’s completely out of hand. These thieves are professional and work in teams. This is definitely increasing,” he said.

The total number of pickpocket incidents across the island has increased from 450 in 2009 to 1,326 so far this year. One such pickpocket was caught lifting a mobile phone from an unsuspecting clubber last September.

The footage, sent to this newspaper, shows a fair young man moving through a crowded dance floor targeting a handbag and making off with a mobile phone.

The manager had said such incidents occurred regularly and claimed constant police presence was the only solution to the “epidemic”.

Safe zones

The safest places to live were Mdina and Għarb, with one robbery each in the past five years.

Gozo saw a significantly lower number of robberies than the whole of Malta.

In fact, the majority of Gozitan localities saw fewer than seven incidents of thefts since 2009.

The north-south divide in Malta had little effect on the incidence of theft as southern localities registered a similar number to northern areas.