Motorway service area robbers reeled in
Investigation remains open to arrest other gang members
MEMBERS of a gang suspected of carrying out at least 39 robberies at service and rest areas along the A- 7 motorway have been arrested by Guardia Civil and National Police in Carlet ( Valencia) and Alicante city.
Foreign tourists were their preferred victims, noted a police spokesman, as they were more vulnerable being in an unfamiliar country and did not speak the language so in many cases never reported the crimes.
The investigation was coordinated between both forces in Elche, Novelda and Santomera ( Murcia) in response to numerous thefts of property in Alicante province and areas bordering it. Officers collaborated and discovered that a group of Romanian men appeared to be behind the crimes, which ranged from thefts and vehicle break- ins to robbery with violence when necessary.
The gang members had assigned roles, some of them carrying out the robberies while others would acquire vehicles to travel up and down the motorway looking for victims.
These vehicles were usually hired using the documentation of compatriots who were not
in Spain or which had been forged.
The spokesman assured the gang’s actions had been extremely dangerous, not hesitating to escape at high speed after committing the offences and even driving the wrong way along the motorway or ramming police cars that tried to stop them. Once the suspects had been identified and
located in Carlet and Alicante, a surveillance operation enabled officers to detain four of the senior members.
They are accused of five robberies with violence, nine robberies with forced entry and 25 thefts, as well as document forgery, a road safety offence, assaulting an officer and belonging to a criminal organisation. The suspects, who are all Romanian and aged between 25 and 44, were handed over to courts where they were arrested and three of them have been jailed on remand.
However the investigation remains open and the arrest of other gang members has not been ruled out since they were not in the country at the time, added the police spokesman.