The National Police and the Italian State Police worked together to break up a travelling cell of Italians who were said to be experts at stealing jewellery by taking advantage of the circumstances.
Four people have been arrested for being involved in 21 incidents across the country, in which they stole jewellery valued more than 500,000 euros.
Specifically, crimes that happened in Asturias, Logroño, Murcia, Palencia, Valencia, Almería, Albacete, Badajoz, Alicante, Seville, Castellón, and Granada have been solved.
A Lithuanian man was arrested in Denia (Alicante) for drug trafficking. He had a European arrest warrant and was wanted to be sent back to his home country.
The agents have had a hard time since the four members of the cell were arrested since they left behind few clues when they committed the crimes and used several security precautions to prevent being linked to the illegal activities.
The inquiry started after a string of jewellery store thefts in Spain in recent years, all of which had a very similar way of doing things.
A few women came into the jewellery store and looked at different items. The staff then showed them the items, generally on jewellery blankets.
At that moment, they would grab one of the blankets with amazing precision, hiding it in a scarf or bag while the employee was busy with other things. After that, they would depart the store quietly and without drawing attention to themselves.
After looking at a lot of similar incidents over the last several years, the agents found a similar theft that happened in 2012 in Zaragoza. An Italian citizen was detained with physical features that were exactly like those of one of the people who did the most recent crimes.
With that information, the agents set up a permanent line of communication between the Polizia di Stato of Italy and the police. They learned that this woman was currently a member of a dangerous criminal group that specialises in robbing jewellery stores across Europe.
From then on, the inquiry was all about finding and arresting the members of the criminal group. The authorities had a hard time finding them because the criminals acted like ghosts and left no trace.
When they stole from jewellery stores, they didn’t touch or handle anything so they wouldn’t leave fingerprints, and they used clothes to hide their identity or make it harder to find them.
They also didn’t check in at hotels and switched cars and phones every time they went from Italy to Spain, where they ran illegal operations for four or five days.
They drove hundreds of kilometres to get to the town where the jewellery store that was the target of the crime was located. After the crime, they drove long miles again to get to the city where they planned to spend the night.
The only reason for this was to keep them from being connected to the crime.
The investigators found something very interesting when they looked at the information Italy gave them: every time a jewellery store was robbed, there was an Italian citizen staying in a town between 100 and 400 kilometres from the crime scene who could be one of the main suspect’s spouses.
The agents found fresh crimes committed by the suspects after looking at this new material. They then issued a European Investigation Order so that the Italian police might find the offenders in that nation.
Finally, on March 30th, the four suspects were found in Spain, where they were clearly planning to conduct more atrocities. The agents started an operation, and the next day they caught all four in Palencia.
The detainees had clothes on them that they had worn when they committed the crimes, as well as 4,000 euros in cash. In Italy, a search warrant was also carried out at the residence of one of the main suspects.
The authorities have confirmed that the inmates were involved in 21 crimes around Spain, some of which happened ten years ago.
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