Central Warsaw doesn't lack pickpockets or beggars.
That's true - especially near the train stations. I find the vast majority of the beggars and pickpockets around my city of Wroclaw tend to be the gypsy families (especially in the central square - poor kids are sent by their parents to beg for change instead of going to school) and a few older alcoholics. I don't really consider these people to be criminals - more bums than anything else. A real criminal does not beg for change or snatch purses - that's what gypsies, drug addicts and alcoholics do.
The Poles have largely been muscled out of that by similar lowlife from south-east Europe.
Yeah the Albanians tend to run the prostitution and brothels - at least in France. No one wants to work with the Albanians - not the Russians, Italians, Poles - no one. Poles will even work with the Columbians, and have on many occasions, but they don't want to work with the Albanians. Unfortunately, that does happen a quite frequently - jobs for waitresses, nursing homes, child care, etc. in the UK, France, Netherlands, etc. are advertised in Poland then once the girls get there they realize they're going to either be sold or pimped out. In the US, a good looking young girl with a connected pimp can easily make $5k to as much as $20k a week in a large city. The independent girls don't make as much but they can easily still make $2k+ a week.
ermans say (with no little justification) about Poles and stealing cars?!
In that very same sentence I wrote about car theft - car theft is common but not nearly as much as it was during the 90's. It's much harder to steal cars now because of all the high tech features and GPS's. Some of the more professional car thieves have purchased trailers that block the GDS's inside the car.
local crime rate plummeted after EU entry
In the small towns I'm sure. The drug trade certainly took off though in the larger cities. Poland now supplies Europe with most of it's amphetamines.
those guys were Welsh what are you talking about?
Yes but the 'beef' supposedly originated in Poland -
theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/23/horsemeat-food-scandal-meat-trade
The parcel was supposed to be made up of 10 tonnes of boxed, frozen "Polish beef trimmings" of the sort being used to make cheap burgers for high-street discount ranges and fast food chains. Who had wrapped it where, with which layers and labels, would be crucial to establishing [...]