portuguese gangsters gone wild

This story about gangs robbing beachgoers near Lisbon was interesting.

On a sunny national holiday, scores of beachgoers were stretched out in the sands at Portugal's Carcavelos beach, when like a swarm of locusts some 500 youths descended on the relaxed crowd, stirring up panic as they robbed the stunned bathers.

Not a pretty postcard for Portuguese tourism.

But that was the scene Friday at the beach 15 kilometers (10 miles) west of Lisbon, according to police. The images flashed on Portuguese television of tensions at the normally tranquil beaches stirred concern about the social tensions in Lisbon's poor suburbs.

The youths, from 12 to 20 years old, were apparently second-generation immigrants who organized into gangs, according to initial police reports.