RIGA — The newly-established Tourist Police began patrolling streets of Riga this week.

At the moment only a handful are out on limited patrols, but soon there will be a ten-man strong force out there. Working together with ordinary municipal police, the Tourist Police will avert illegal actions against tourists and give out information from on laws and regulations in Riga in English and other languages. Additionally, four policemen will be serving a 24/7 help phone line for the tourists.

The Riga City Council decided to set up the Tourist Police this summer in order to tackle tourism-related crimes in Riga. According to statistics of municipality, foreign citizens are involved every day in different incidents of crime in Riga — 250 cases this year have been registered until the end of September. Some tourists get cheated in taxis, bars and nightclubs. But sometimes they themselves are the ones who cause trouble, getting into fights or even urinating at the Freedom Monument. The Tourist Police will be responsible for handling these issues.

The creation of this special police unit has been criticized by the former police chief Valdis Pumpurs.

“Money should not be spent on this, it should be used for investigating more serious crimes,” Pumpurs told newspaper Diena.

Pumpurs does not deny though that police should fight against those who cheat tourists. But this should be done by already existing police units, Pumpurs argues, otherwise different units will end up doing the same thing.

The chief of the unit has not yet been appointed. Riga Municipal Police Chief Jānis Geduševs said that he will probably recruit somebody from those already working at the municipal police.

“We have been talking also to policemen who have not been part of the system for ten years. In every collective somebody has heard something, but those are just rumors,” Geduševs told the local press.

The city as allocated 96,000 lats to setting up the new police unit this year. Most of the funding will be used for salaries and inventory.