I’ve had two actual experiences with gypsies. When we were in Ericeira, Portugal, with the kids one summer there was a gypsy encampment nearby. Everyone said to watch out, because they would steal anything that wasn’t nailed down, and I think they knew what they were talking about.
The other was the experience of our English cousins in a village near Bath. A bunch of gypsies took down a gate and moved into the woods on the edge of their property. In typical English fashion the law protected them from being ejected. There was no legal recourse. Fortunately they eventually decided to move on.
If your cousins would have wanted to take the gate down, the local planners would have probably grade 2 listed it and denied their request.