Geneva Isn't as Crime-Free Anymore

Most major European cities would be very happy to have Geneva’s crime record. There were 2,248 assaults in the city of 471,550 in 2011, down 9 percent from a year earlier, according to Geneva police. Six people were murdered, and each case was solved. A 2011 study by New York-based consulting firm Mercer named Geneva the sixth-safest city in the world.

Geneva is no longer the idyll it long fancied itself. Ever since Switzerland joined Europe’s passport-free Schengen Area in 2009 and began allowing people to drive across the border without stopping at immigration, property crime in Geneva—home to 132 banks and some of the world’s richest financiers (not to mention their watchmakers and jewelers)—has swelled. Bag-snatching increased 28 percent, and pickpocketing climbed 43 percent in 2011, according to Geneva authorities.