Spanish cops bust €1.5 million international car smuggling ring

GUARDIA Civil have busted an international car smuggling ring worth at least €1.5 million.

Supported by the Bulgarian Police, Portuguese Police and Europol, ‘Operation Historic’ resulted in the arrest of 19 suspects and the investigation of five more.

All are accused of belonging to a criminal organisation, vehicle theft, document fraud, and money laundering.

At least 85 vehicles have been stolen by the group, which had links to Portugal, Poland, Romania, France, Austria, Russia, Bulgaria and Belgium.

Fourteen houses were searched in different Spanish and Portuguese provinces that resulted in the seizure of firearms.

They also had high tech devices which could detect and block electromagnetic signals and GPS, and anti-theft security mechanisms, as well as tools to open vehicle doors.

The vehicles were mainly stolen in Madrid. The ring used frequency jammers to block any GPS/GSM devices installed in the cars, as well as various security measures to avoid detection.

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Laurence Dollimore

Laurence Dollimore is a Spanish-speaking, NCTJ-trained journalist with almost a decade’s worth of experience.
The London native has a BA in International Relations from the University of Leeds and and an MA in the same subject from Queen Mary University London.
He earned his gold star diploma in multimedia journalism at the prestigious News Associates in London in 2016, before immediately joining the Olive Press at their offices on the Costa del Sol.
After a five-year stint, Laurence returned to the UK to work as a senior reporter at the Mail Online, where he remained for two years before coming back to the Olive Press as Digital Editor in 2023.
He continues to work for the biggest newspapers in the UK, who hire him to investigate and report on stories in Spain.
These include the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Mail Online, Mail on Sunday and The Sun and Sun Online.
He has broken world exclusives on everything from the Madeleine McCann case to the anti-tourism movement in Tenerife.

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