Alex Trelinski
A MADRID-BASED gang travelled to the Costa Blanca and Murcia areas to rob store safes in large shopping centres after hiding inside premises before closing time.
The Policia Nacional have arrested five people after raiding three Madrid addresses and charged the group with eight robberies in Alicante, Elche, Murcia, San Javier, and Torrevieja.
Equipment to inhibit alarms, ‘bumping’ keys, cylinder extractors and fake ID papers were discovered.
The police said the gang- made up of Spanish, Colombian, and Moroccan nationals- targeted well-known branded stores who would be storing large amounts of cash.
Money and items totalling over €65,000 were stolen by the crew.
Authorities became aware of them after three businesses in the same Murcia shopping centre had nearly €14,000 taken from their safes.
The robbers would hide in stores shortly before they shut for the day, and then after staff had closed the premises, they’d move in on the safes as well as taking any goods they fancied.
Police also heard about an Elche store being robbed of €675 of clothing and the security images matched up to the same intruders in Murcia.
Money totalling €26,000 was taken from two outlets in San Javier and Torrevieja, as investigators discovered the thieves were travelling from Madrid and had also struck in other parts of Spain.
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