Agents of the National Police of Calatayud (Zaragoza) have dismantled, with the arrest of five people between the ages of 22 and 52, the leadership of a criminal organization that robbed the elderly and to which the authorship of more than one hundred crimes in the territory is attributed Spanish, especially in the Valencian Community, Aragon, Catalonia and Murcia, during the last year with a total that would exceed 60,000 euros.
The investigation began last May when an elderly woman from this town reported the theft of her bag containing the 3,000 euros she had just taken from the bank and the agents of the Calatayud Judicial Police Group found out that the authorship corresponded to an itinerant gang that was operating in numerous points in Spain, which made it difficult to find them.
In September the same group returned to work in Calatayud, where they stole two bank books from a nonagenarian and made three refunds that exceeded 700 euros.
As reported by the Aragon Police Headquarters, the perpetrators carried out their criminal activity using the sowing method, which requires the participation of at least three people, perfectly coordinated and each with a specific function.
They usually act in the vicinity of banking entities, although they are also accused of acts committed in large commercial areas, to locate potential victims, especially very vulnerable ones, who make important money withdrawals or to find out the PIN of their cards/bank books while doing other operation, and then select the most appropriate technique to carry out the theft.
This gang operated especially in the Valencian Community, Aragon, Catalonia and Murcia, with very short periods of time in a locality, both urban and rural, where they seized the loot and disappeared, making investigation difficult.
The agents managed to identify several members of this gang and the town where they were staying and on March 9 they traveled to Barcelona, where they established a device for their arrest, in which agents of the XXI Organized Crime Group of the capital collaborated. catalan
Five people were arrested in the vicinity of Ricart Street, who had almost 60 police records for acts of the same nature and were handed over to the judge the following day, who ordered them released with charges.
At the time of the arrest, different headwear, scarves and sunglasses that they use as props and also telephones with which they are usually interconnected every time they commit a criminal act were seized from them. The policemen were able to verify that the detainees were traveling to Tarragona to commit new thefts from the elderly.
