Airport thieves arrested
Handbag containing £900 was stolen without victim noticing
A BADLY parked vehicle occupied by a nervous looking man aroused the suspicions of National Police at AlicanteElche airport, leading to the arrest of a pair of suspected thieves.
A spokesman for the force explained on Tuesday that the officers involved were participating in an ongoing operation to eradicate thefts at the facility and in the surrounding area.
Having taken down the details of the vehicle, they found it had been involved in two other crimes and so called for back-up from colleagues and the airport’s private security guards, with whom they collaborate closely.
In the meantime, the patrol kept a discreet eye on the suspect, noticing that minutes later a second man came running up to the car carrying a woman’s handbag.
By then a couple of security guards had arrived and accompanied the officers over to the suspects, one of whom tried to run off as soon as he saw them approaching but they managed to restrain him despite his ‘violent’ struggle.
They recovered the handbag, which contained valuable and important belongings of the vic- tims, including personal documentation, two expensive mobile phones and £900 in cash.
When the owners were finally located and interviewed, they said that the two people the officers had arrested had been near them earlier on and were entertaining them, but they did not even notice her bag had been stolen until afterwards.
The suspects worked in coordination using well-honed techniques to distract victims so they could steal from their belongings undetected, alleged the police spokesman.
Between them they had been arrested 25 times before in places all over the country, most of them for property-related offences.
The suspects are accused of theft, conspiracy, breaking immigration law and attacking an officer of the law, and were handed over to the duty court in Elche.