Tim McNulty
VIOLENT carjackers blamed for high end car thefts and the attempted murder of a Marbella businessman have been arrested by police along the costas.
The Malaga-based gang specialised in the theft to order of high-end vehicles to be either past to other criminal organisations or smuggled abroad.
Posing as members of the police, the heavily-armed gang also committed a number of violent robberies.
The group had a clear modus operandi with all their robberies occurring in public and in a short period of time, never more than three minutes.
In one attack, a businessman in Marbella was rammed off his motorcycle by a vehicle fitted with police sirens and left badly injured.
National police have arrested six Ukrainian men suspected of being members of the group – five in Fuengirola and one in Elche on the Costa Blanca.
The gang member in Elche was reportedly driving a stolen car with false plates and licence when he was stopped by police.
Investigators later located a safe house in Mijas that was used to store the gang’s stolen cars and found two more stolen vehicles fixed with fake plates.
The operation also netted one of the largest collections of cloned car keys and plates ever found in Spain as well as weapons and cash.
