The shock must have been great, not only because of the robbery itself, but because of the place where it happened. So much so that he had to walk until he managed to find help. This is the ordeal that a 45-year-old man has had in mid-December, which, after an exhaustive investigation by officers of Elche, has resulted in seven arrests in different towns of the province of Alicante, although in reality the number of individuals involved is nine.
In the early little hours
It started on December 11th at about 3:30 in the morning. The victim was driving down the A-7 highway when, near the Elche-Crevillent exit, he was stopped by two vehicles with lights that appeared to be police cars and thus imposter police personnel, blocking his way, one from the front and the other from the back, forcing him out of his car. He knew there were six or seven persons who spoke Spanish when he was outdoors, but he could not give any more details in his testimony to the National Police. Two of the assailants, wearing balaclavas, grabbed the victim’s iPhone, ID, bank cards and €2,000 in cash, while the other two stole his car, which the victim stated contained a laptop, work tools and clothes. Besides, it wasn’t his car; it had been leased to him by a friend.
Abandoned in the middle of the road
In this case he was left stuck on the motorway and had to walk to the N-340, the road linking Elche and Crevillent, where he came across road maintenance staff who transported him to the police station. He told police he hadn’t seen any weapons, hadn’t been hurt, but he did report the heist. Thus began the investigation carried out by the Specialised and Violent Crime Unit (UDEV) of the Elche Police Station , which began with painstaking work and ended lately with the arrest of these seven people.
Wrecked car
The first step in this was to locate the people who owned the stolen vehicles, and they told how they had gotten the car on a platform. They also said they had seen suspicious people in their neighbourhood since they bought it. The car was recovered a day after the theft. Police in Abarán, Murcia, reported its recovery and said they found it entirely vandalised inside.
Different places
The officers then checked the trail and found that one of the vehicles used in the raid had been hired from a car rental firm at Alicante-Elche airport. This led to the discovery of a network of people renting cars to commit crimes. The operation consisted of issuing the orders and passing them from one to another and hiring the cars in exchange for money by a number of other persons. The National Police operation led to four arrests in Elche, one in Santa Pola, one in Orihuela Costa and a seventh in Torrevieja, aged between 23 and 54. They face charges of robbery with violence and impersonating a public authority. One case is also charged with an immigration offence. One of those arrested has approximately 150 previous convictions.
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